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Itching Palm 

A STUDY OF THE HABIT 
OF TIPPING IN AMERICA 

By 

WILLIAM R. SCOTT 

Author of 
The Americans in Panama," 
Scientific Circulation Management," Etc. 




THE PENN PUBLISHING 

COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 

1916 



a $* 



COPYRIGHT 
i 9 i 6 BY 
THE PKNN 
PUBLISHING 
COMPANY 




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NOV iO \m 

The Itching Palm 



kl.A446370 



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f 
THE AUTHOR WILL BE PLEASED TO COR- 
RESPOND WITH ANY READER WHO APPROVES 
OF, OR HAS COMMENTS TO MAKE UPON, THE 
ATTITUDE TAKEN IN THIS BOOK TOWARD 
THE TIPPING CUSTOM. 

WILLIAM R. SCOTT. 
PADUCAH, KENTUCKY. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 


PAGE 


I 


Flunkyism in America . 


. 7 


II 


On Personal Liberty 


. 10 


III 


Barbary Pirates 


. 15 


IV 


Personnel and Distribution 


. 19 


V 


The Economics of Tipping 


. 26 


VI 


The Ethics of Tipping . 


. 36 


VII 


The Psychology of Tipping 


47 


VIII 


The Literature of Tipping 


. 58 


IX 


Tipping and the Stage . 


68 


X 


The Employee Viewpoint . 


73 


XI 


The Employer Viewpoint . 


88 


XII 


One Step Forward .... 


97 


XIII 


The Sleeping-Car Phase 


105 


XIV 


The Government and Tipping . 


113 


XV 


Laws Against Tipping 


122 


XVI 


Samuel Gompers on Tipping 


144 


XVII 


The Way Out 


158 




Index 


169 



THE ITCHING PALM 



FLUNKYISM IN AMERICA 

" Oliver Cromwell struck a mortal blow 
at the universal heart of Flunkyism," wrote 
Carlyle of the execution of Charles I. 

Yet, Flunkyism is not dead! 

In the United States alone more than 5,- 
000,000 persons derive their incomes, in whole 
or in part, from " tips," or gratuities. They 
have the moral malady denominated The Itch- 
ing Palm. 

Tipping is the modern form of Flunkyism. 
Flunkyism may be defined as a willingness to be 
servile for a consideration. It is democracy's 
deadly foe. The two ideas cannot live together 
except in a false peace. The tendency always 
is for one to sap the vitality of the other. 

The full significance of the foregoing figures 
7 



8 THE ITCHING PALM 

is realized in the further knowledge that these 
5,000,000 persons with itching palms are fully 
10 per cent of our entire industrial population; 
for the number of persons engaged in gainful 
occupations in this country is less than 50,- 
000,000. 

Whether this constitutes a problem for 
moralists, economists and statesmen depends 
upon the ethical appraisement of tipping. If 
tipping is moral, the interest is reduced to the 
economic phase — whether the remuneration 
thus given is normal or abnormal. If tipping 
is immoral, the fact that 5,000,000 Americans 
practice it constitutes a problem of first rate 
importance. 

Accurate statistics are not obtainable, but 
conservative estimates place the amount of 
money given in one year by the American 
people in tips, or gratuities, at a figure some- 
where between $200,000,000 and $500,000,000 ! 

Now we have the full statement of the case 
against tipping — five million persons receiving 
in excess of two hundred millions of dollars for 
— what ? 

It will be interesting to examine the ethics, 



FLUNKYISM IN AMERICA 9 

economics and psychology of tipping to deter- 
mine whether the American people receive a 
value for this expenditure. 



II 

ON PERSONAL LIBERTY 

The Itching Palm is a moral disease. It is 
as old as the passion of greed in the human 
mind. Milton was thinking of it when he ex- 
claimed : 

" Help us to save free conscience from the paw, 
Of hireling wolves whose gospel is their maw." 

Although it had only a feeble lodgment in 
the minds of the Puritans, because their minds 
were in the travail that gave birth to democracy, 
enough remained to perpetuate the disease. In 
Europe, under monarchical ideals, a person 
could accept a tip without feeling the acute 
loss of self-respect that attends the practice 
in America, under democratic ideals. For tip- 
ping is essentially an aristocratic custom. 

TIPPING UN-AMERICAN 

If it seems astounding that this aristocratic 

practice should reach such stupendous propor- 

10 



ON PERSONAL LIBERTY 11 

tions in a republic, we must remember that the 
same republic allowed slavery to reach stupen- 
dous proportions. 

IF TIPPING IS UN-AMERICAN, SOME DAY, 

SOMEHOW, IT WILL BE UPROOTED 

LIKE AFRICAN SLAVERY 

Apparently the American conscience is dor- 
mant upon this issue. But this is more appar- 
ent than real. The people are stirring vaguely 
and uneasily over the ethics of the custom. Six 
State Legislatures reflected the dawning of a 
new conscience by considering in their 1915 
sessions bills relating to tipping. They were 
Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee 
and South Carolina. 

The geographical distribution of these States 
is significant. It is proof that the opposition 
to the practice is not isolated, not sectional, 
but national. North, Central, South, the ver- 
dict was registered that tipping is wrong. The 
South, former home of slavery, might be sup- 
posed to be favorable to this aristocratic cus- 
tom. On the contrary the most vigorous op- 
position to it is found there. Mississippi, 
Arkansas, Tennessee, and South Carolina simul- 



12 THE ITCHING PALM 

taneously had laws against tipping — with the 
usual contests in the courts on their constitu- 
tionality. 

The Negro was servile by law and inheritance. 
The modern tip-taker voluntarily assumes, in 
a republic where he is actually and theoretically 
equal to all other citizens, a servile attitude 
for a fee. While the form of servitude is dif- 
ferent, the slavery is none the less real in the 
case of the tip-taker. 

Strangely enough, bills to prohibit tipping 
often have been vetoed by Governors — notably 
in Wisconsin — on the ground that they cur- 
tailed personal liberty. That is to say, a bill 
which removed the chains of social slavery from 
the serving classes was declared to be an abridg- 
ment of liberty ! " Oh, Liberty, how many 
crimes are committed in thy name ! " 

The Legislature in Wisconsin almost re- 
passed the bill over the Governor's veto. In 
Tennessee and Kentucky bills have been vetoed 
for the same given reason, though Tennessee 
in 1916 finally had such a law in force. In 
Illinois, the law was framed primarily with the 
object of preventing the leasing of privileges to 
collect tips in hotels and other public places, 



ON PERSONAL LIBERTY 13 

and not against the individual giver or taker of 
tips. 

SHORT-LIVED LAWS 

The courts have negatived such laws on much 
the same grounds, so that anti-tipping laws 
thus far have been, generally, short-lived. The 
reason is, of course, that popular sentiment has 
not been behind the laws in an extent sufficient 
to give them power. Judges and executives sim- 
ply have yielded to their own class impulses, 
and the pressure from organized interests, to 
suppress the legislation. When the public con- 
science finds itself and becomes organized and 
articulate, they will have no difficulty in find- 
ing grounds for declaring regulatory laws con- 
stitutional. The history of the prohibition of 
the liquor business is a parallel. 

PERSONAL LIBERTY 

Personal liberty is a phrase that is being re- 
defined in America in every decade. In its 
broadest sense it is interpreted to mean that a 
man has the right to go to perdition if he so 
elects without neighbors or the government tak- 
ing note or interfering. 

Anti-liquor laws in the early days of the 



14 THE ITCHING PALM 

temperance movement fared badly from this in- 
terpretation, just as anti-tipping laws fare to- 
day. But as public sentiment crystallized, and 
judges and executives began to feel the pressure 
at the polls, a new conception of personal lib- 
erty developed. In its present accepted sense, 
as regards liquor, it is interpreted to mean that 
no citizen may act or live in a way that is detri- 
mental to himself, his neighbor or his govern- 
ment, and his privilege to drink liquor is 
abridged or abolished at will. 

The right to give tips is not inalienable. It 
is not grounded on personal liberty. If the 
public conscience reaches the conviction that 
tipping is detrimental to democracy, that it 
destroys that fineness of self-respect requisite in 
a republic, the right will be abridged or with- 
drawn. 



in 

BARBARY PIRATES 

The American people became fully aroused 
on one occasion to the iniquity of tipping — on 
an international scale. 

In 1801 President Jefferson decided that the 
United States could tolerate no longer the sys- 
tem of tribute enforced by the Barbary States 
along the shores of the Mediterranean. 

Before our action, no European government 
had made more than fitful, ineffectual attempts 
to break up a practice at once humiliating to 
national honor and disastrous to national com- 
merce. Candor requires the admission that 
we, too, submitted for years to this system of 
paying tribute to Barbary pirates for an un- 
molested passage of our ships, but the signifi- 
cant fact is that American manhood did finally 
and successfully revolt against the practice. 

By 1805 our naval forces had brought the 

pirates to their knees and all Europe breathed 

15 



16 THE ITCHING PALM 

grateful sighs of relief. Even the Pope com- 
mended the American achievement. The prac- 
tice was contrary to every dictate of self-re- 
spect, 

TRIBUTE 

These pirates of Algiers, Tunis, Morocco and 
Tripoli did not pretend to have any other right 
behind their demands for tribute than the right 
they could enforce with cutlass and cannon — 
a right ferociously employed. It was not rob- 
bery in the ordinary sense of the word. They 
demanded a fee based on the value of the cargo 
for the privilege of sailing in the Mediterranean, 
and this being paid, the ship could proceed to 
its destination. Ship-owners soon began to 
figure tribute as a fixed expense of navigation, 
like insurance, and passed the added cost along 
to the ultimate consumer. 

This practice of paying tribute was a system 
of international tipping. The Barbary pirates 
granted immunity to those who obeyed the cus- 
tom, but made it decidedly warm and expensive 
for those who dared to protest against it — 
just as do our modern pirates in hotels, sleeping 
cars, restaurants, barber shops and elsewhere. 



BARBARY PIRATES 17 

If a ship refused to pay tribute it was sunk, 
and the sailors went to slavery in the desert, 
or to death by fearful torture. President Jef- 
ferson could not see any basis of right in the 
position of the Barbary States that the Medi- 
terranean was their private lake through which 
ships could not pass without paying toll. He 
sent Decatur to register our protest. 

With the Pinckney slogan : " millions for 

DEFENSE NOT ONE CENT FOR TRIBUTE ! " the 

American naval forces made good our position. 
The tips that skippers of our nation had been 
paying to the pirates were saved and the cus- 
tom soon was abandoned by other nations. 

•if- «fe. *Xl ft*. *ir. <1> 

yft y(f i!t 7tt ^f Tflr 

To-day, the old battle cry is reversed to read : 
" Millions for tribute — not one cent for de- 
fense ! " 

It is certain that a greater tribute is paid 
in one week in the United States in the form of 
tips, than our merchantmen paid during the 
whole period that they knuckled to the Barbary 
pirates. 

In New York City alone more than $100,000 
a day is paid in gratuities to waiters, hotel em- 
ployes, chauffeurs, barbers and allied classes. 



18 THE ITCHING PALM 

But New York has reached a subserviency to 
the tipping custom that is amazing in a demo- 
cratic country. 

This vast tribute i£ paid for not more real 
service than the Barbary pirates rendered to 
those from whom they exacted tribute. It is 
given to workers who are paid by their em- 
ployers to perform the services enjoyed by the 
public. If the Barbary pirates could see the 
ease with which a princely tribute is exacted 
from a docile public by the tip-takers, they 
would yearn to be reincarnated as waiters in 
America — the Land of the Fee ! 



IV 

PERSONNEL AND DISTRIBUTION 

The Itching Palm is not limited to the serv- 
ing classes. It is found among public officials, 
where it is particularized as grafting, and it is 
found among store buyers, purchasing agents, 
traveling salesmen and the like, and takes the 
form of splitting commissions. There are 
varied manifestations of the disease, but whether 
the amount of the gratuity is ten cents to a 
waiter or $10,000 to a captain of police, the 
practice is the same. 

This is a partial list of those affected : 

Baggagemen Chauffeurs 

Barbers Charwomen 

Bartenders Coachmen 

Bath attendants Cooks 

Bellboys Door men 

Bootblacks Elevator men 

Butlers Garbage men 

Cab drivers Guides 

Id 



20 THE ITCHING PALM 

Hatboys Mail carriers 

Housekeepers Pullman porters 

Janitors Rubbish collectors 

Maids Steamship stewards 

Manicurists Theater attendants 

Messengers Waiters 

The foregoing list is not offered as a complete 
roster of those who regularly or occasionally 
receive tips. Nearly every one can think of 
additions, and at Christmas the list is extended 
to include money gifts to policemen, delivery 
men and numerous others. 

THE TIP-TAKING CLASSES 

At the last Census, in 1910, there were 38,- 
167,336 persons in the United States, out of a 
total population of ninety-odd millions, who 
were engaged in gainful occupations, that is, 
who worked for specified wages or salaries. Of 
this number, 3,772,174 persons were engaged in 
domestic or personal service, or practically ten 
per cent, of the industrial population. 

This means that in round numbers 4,000,000 
Americans of both sexes and all ages were en- 
gaged in the lines of work specified in the fore- 
going list, with certain additions as mentioned. 



PERSONNEL AND DISTRIBUTION 21 



These are the citizens who profit by the tip- 
ping practice. 

Since 1910 the growth in population to one 
hundred millions, and the steadily widening 
spread of the tipping practice will increase the 
beneficiaries of tipping to 5,000,000. An idea 
of the relative distribution of the total may be 
obtained from the statistics of fifty leading 
cities. The numbers represent the tip-taking 
classes in each city. 



CITY 

Albany . . . 
Atlanta . . . 
Baltimore . 
Birmingham 
Boston .... 
Bridgeport 
Buffalo . . . 
Cambridge . 
Chicago . . . 
Cincinnati . 
Cleveland . 
Columbus . 
Dayton . . . 
Denver . . . 
Detroit . . . 
Fall River . 
Grand Rapids 
Indianapolis . 



NUMBER 

8,000 
23,000 
48,000 
16,000 
61,000 

5,200 
25,000 

7,500 

135,000 

30,000 

31,000 

14,000 

6,500 
17,000 
26,000 

4,000 

5,500 
19,000 



CITY 

Jersey City 
Kansas City 
Los Angeles 
Lowell .... 
Louisville . 
Memphis . . 
Milwaukee . 
Minneapolis 
Nashville . . 
New Haven 
New Orleans 
New York 
Newark . . 
Oakland . 
Omaha . . 
Paterson . 
Philadelphia 
Pittsburgh 



NUMBER 

. 14,000 

. 24,000 

. 26,000 

. 5,500 

. 23,000 

. 19,000 

. 22,000 

. 19,000 

. 15,000 

. 9,000 

. 37,000 
.400,000 

. 17,000 

. 11,000 

. 10,000 

. 5,000 
.105,000 

. 41,000 



THE ITCHING PALM 



Portland . . 


. 17,000 


Scranton 


6,000 


Providence 


. 14,000 


Seattle 


19,000 


Richmond . 


. 15,000 


Spokane . . . 


7,000 


Rochester . 


. 13,000 


Syracuse . . . 


9,000 


St. Louis . . 


. 56,000 


Toledo 


9,500 


St. Paul... 


. 16,000 


Washington 


. 43,000 


San Francis 


co 44,000 


Worcester . 


. 9,000 



In all other cities, towns and hamlets there 
are proportionate quotas to bring the grand 
total to 5,000,000. Any estimate of the daily 
tipping tribute for the whole country neces- 
sarily is only an approximation, but $600,000 
is a conservative figure. At this rate the an- 
nual tribute is around $220,000,000. 

IN NEW YORK ALONE 

Taking New York with its 400,000 persons 
who profit from tipping, the leading classes of 
beneficiaries are as follows: 



Barbers .... 


..20,000 


Janitors . . . 


..25,000 


Bartenders . 


..12,000 


Manicurists 


.. 4,500 


Bellboys . . . 


.. 2,500 


Messengers . 


.. 1,500 


Bootblacks . 


. . 3,500 


Porters .... 


..15,000 


Chauffeurs . 


..12,000 


Waiters .... 


..35,000 



The tipping to these and other classes varies 
both in amount and regularity. Waiters and 
manicurists in the better-class places receive no 



PERSONNEL AND DISTRIBUTION 23 

pay from their employers and depend entirely 
upon tips for their compensation. Barbers and 
chauffeurs are classes which receive wages and 
supplement them with tips. Sometimes the em- 
ployer will pay wages and require that all tips 
be turned in to the house. 

It is a common feature of the " Help 
Wanted" columns to state that the job is de- 
sirable to the workers because of " good tips." 
Thus the employers are fully alert to the eco- 
nomic advantage of tipping, and wherever it is 
practicable they throw upon their patrons the 
entire cost of servant hire. 

The extent to which employers are exploiting 
the public is realized vaguely, if at all. The 
vein of generosity and the fear of violating a 
social convention can be worked profitably, and 
they are in league with their employees to make 
it assay the maximum amount to the patron. 

In a restaurant where the employer has thus 
shifted the cost of waiter hire to the shoulders of 
the public, the patron who conscientiously ob- 
jects to tipping has not the slightest chance in 
the world of a square deal in competition with 
the patron who pays tribute, although he pays 
as much for the food. 



24 THE ITCHING PALM 

A waiter, knowing that his compensation de- 
pends upon what he can work out of his patron, 
employs every art to stimulate the tipping pro- 
pensity, from subtle flattery to out-right bull- 
dozing. He weaves a spell of obligation around 
a patron as tangible, if invisible, as the web a 
spider weaves around a fly. He plays as con- 
sciously upon the patron's fear of social usage 
as the musician in the alcove plays upon his 
violin. 

This is a particularly bad ethical and eco- 
nomic situation from any viewpoint. The pa- 
tron, getting only one service, pays two persons 
for it — the employer and the employee. The 
payment to the employer is fixed, but to the em- 
ployee it is dependent upon the whim of the pa- 
tron. To make this situation normal, the pa- 
tron should pay only once, and this should cover 
both the cost of the food and the services of the 
waiter. Theoretically this is the present idea 
under the common law, but actually the patron 
is required, through fear of well-defined penal- 
ties, to pay twice. 

Naturally, if the $200,000,000 or more an- 
nually given to those serving the public should 
be withdrawn suddenly, employers would face the 



PERSONNEL AND DISTRIBUTION 25 

necessity of a radical readjustment of wage 
systems. In many lines wages would be in- 
creased to a normal basis, either at the expense 
of the employer's profits, or through additional 
charges to patrons. Before going further into 
the employer phase of the practice, the eco- 
nomics of tipping in individual instances will be 
an interesting study. 



V 

THE ECONOMICS OF TIPPING 

The basic question is, does tipping represent 
a sound exchange of wealth? Do the American 
people receive full value, or any value, for the 
$200,000,000 or more given in tips? 

Values, of course, may be sentimental as well 
as substantial and, so far as tipping is con- 
cerned, it can be demonstrated that if any 
values are received they are sentimental. The 
satisfaction of giving, the balm to vanity, the 
indulgence of pride, are the values obtained by 
the giver of a tip in exchange for his money. 

It is a stock argument for tipping that the 
person serving frequently performs extra serv- 
ices, or displays special painstaking, which de- 
serve extra compensation. Only an examina- 
tion of individual instances can determine 
whether this is true. The proportion of the 
tipping tribute which really pays for extraor- 
dinary service is negligible. A brief inquiry 

26 



THE ECONOMICS OF TIPPING 27 

into a few of the more prominent instances of 
tipping follows. 

THE WAITER 

If food is sold undelivered, then the waiter in 
bringing it to the patron and assisting him in its 
consumption does perform an extra service for 
which payment is due. 

But this is not the fact, any more than that 
a shoe clerk should be tipped for assisting a cus- 
tomer in the selection of his employer's foot- 
wear. In both instances, the cost of the serv- 
ice is included in the price of the article — food 
or shoes. 

The prices on the bill of fare have been figured 
to include all costs of serving it, such as cook- 
hire, waiter-hire, rent, music, table ware, raw 
materials and overhead charges. If a sirloin 
steak costs seventy-five cents a definite part of 
that amount represents the wages of the waiter 
serving it. 

Thus the waiter has no claim upon the patron 
for compensation, because the patron, in paying 
for the food, provides the proprietor with funds 
from which the waiter's wages will be paid. If 
the patron, in addition, gives the waiter a tip it 



28 THE ITCHING PALM 

is clearly a gift for which no value has been re- 
turned. The waiter is paid twice for one serv- 
ice. 

ECONOMIC WASTE 

The question then recurs, is this gift to the 
waiter a sound economic transaction? Econo- 
mists teach that no transaction is industrially 
sound which does not involve an equal exchange 
of values. The exchange of five dollars for a 
pair of shoes is a sound transaction because the 
dealer and the customer each receive a value. 
But the gift of a quarter to a w T aiter as a tip is 
an unsound transaction because the patron re- 
ceives nothing in return — nothing of like sub- 
stantiality. 

The patron may justify the gift from senti- 
mental considerations, of pride, generosity or 
fear of violating a social convention, but no 
sophistry of reasoning can prove that a sub- 
stantial value has been received. 

Of course, a waiter may give a patron more 
than the proprietor agrees to give in the bill of 
fare, and this undoubtedly is an extra service — 
but it is also a dishonest service. Every extra 
service to one patron means a deficiency of serv- 



THE ECONOMICS OF TIPPING 29 

ice to other patrons. It is a common experience 
that liberal tipping obtains special attentions 
which non-tipping patrons miss, but, being dis- 
honest, such a condition is outside the scope of 
this inquiry. When a patron pays for food he 
is entitled to adequate and equal service, and no 
largess by other patrons should interfere with 
this basic right. 

On its economic side, then, tipping is wrong. 
Wealth is exchanged without both parties to the 
transaction receiving fair values. The psy- 
chology and ethics of the transaction will be 
considered in other chapters. 

THE BARBER 

No tipping is so inexcusable as that which is 
done to a barber. The trade is highly or- 
ganized and the workers are well-paid under 
good working conditions. There is not the 
slightest chance for the barber to serve a patron 
in a way for which the patron does not pay in 
the shop tariffs. 

If a haircut costs thirty-five cents, the patron 
is entitled to just as good a hair-cut as the 
barber can give. The patron enters the shop 
upon the assumption that he is entitled to a sat- 



30 THE ITCHING PALM 

isfactory service. Hence, in tipping a barber a 
patron is yielding in a peculiarly timid way to 
the mesmeric influence which the tipping custom 
exerts over its devotees. 

It is a wanton waste of wealth, an unsound 
business transaction, because money is given 
where charity is unnecessary and where abso- 
lutely nothing is given in return. " But my 
barber takes lots of pains with my hair," the 
patron exclaims in justification of the tip. As 
in the instance of the waiter, if he takes more 
than a normal amount of pains with your hair 
he is dishonest to his employer and to other pa- 
trons whom he must neglect to pay you special 
attention. Your right is to a satisfactory serv- 
ice, and this you pay for in the regular charge. 
Any extra compensation is unearned increment 
to the barber. 

The unctuous manner he employs to arouse a 
sense of obligation in a patron, when stripped of 
disguises, is a plain hold-up game. This will be 
shown in the consideration of the psychology 
and ethics of tipping. 

THE HOTEL 

The attitude that hotel employees have been 



THE ECONOMICS OF TIPPING 31 

allowed to develop toward the public is a blot 
upon professional hospitality. 

Every one of them takes the hotel patron for 
fair game. And the hotel proprietor, with a 
few notable exceptions, encourages this despic- 
able attitude. The assumption is that the pa- 
tron pays at the desk only for the privilege of 
being in the building. 

Hence, they will not cheerfully move his bag- 
gage to his room unless he pays to get it there. 
He cannot have a pitcher of ice water without 
being made to feel that he owes for the service. 
The maid who cares for his room exacts her toll. 
The head waiter demands payment for showing 
him to a seat. The individual waiters at each 
meal (and they are changed each meal by the 
head-waiter so that the patron has a new tip 
to give each time he dines) require fees. If he 
rings a bell, asks any assistance, goes out the 
door to a cab, in short, whichever way he turns, 
an itching palm is outstretched! 

Just think for a moment of the real signifi- 
cance of this state of affairs. Hotel hospi- 
tality? Why, the Barbary pirates would have 
been ashamed to go it that strong ! 

To ignore this grafting spirit means insult- 



32 THE ITCHING PALM 

ing annoyance. The suave hotel manager 
listens to your complaint and smiles assurance 
that his guests shall have proper service, but 
underneath the smile he has a contempt for the 
" tight-wad," and instructs the cashier always 
to give the waiters small change so as to make 
tipping easy for the patrons. 

In truth, what does a hotel guest pay for 
when he registers? Certainly for the service of 
the bell-boy who carries his suit-case to his 
room ; for the keeping of the room in order ; for 
water, clean towels and other necessities for his 
comfort; for the privilege of finding a seat in 
the dining room ; for the right to use the doors 
— all without extra charge. 

But the hotel manager admits this in theory 
and outrageously violates it in practice. All 
tipping done to bell-boys, porters, maids, wait- 
ers, door men, hat-boys and other servitors in a 
hotel is sheer economic waste. When the guest 
pays his bill at the desk he pays for all the serv- 
ice they perform. 

The hotel manager protests that the money 
that passes between his guests and his employees 
is not his affair. But he proves his insincerity 
by adjusting his wage scale on the estimate that 



THE ECONOMICS OF TIPPING 33 

the guests will pass money to his employees! 
Professional hospitality as "enjoyed" by 
Americans is a travesty on democracy. That 
Europe should have such a system and spirit is 
historically understandable. Tipping, and the 
aristocratic idea it exemplifies, is what we left 
Europe to escape. It is a cancer in the breast 
of democracy. 

THE CHAUFFEUR 

It would be possible to run through all the 
classes tipped and prove that the extra com- 
pensation is unearned. The chauffeur is a lat- 
ter-day instance of the itching palm. Like the 
barber, the chauffeur is paid well for his work. 
He does nothing for which the patron should 
give him a tip. The taxi-meter charges the pa- 
tron roundly for all the service given, yet tip- 
ping chauffeurs is as common in the larger cities 
as tipping barbers or waiters. It simply shows 
the spread of the practice to workers who have 
no other claim upon it than their own avaricious 
impulses — and the extreme docility of the pub- 
lic. Every tip given to a chauffeur is so clearly 
a bad economic transaction that further argu- 
ment is unnecessary. 



34 THE ITCHING PALM 

So widespread has the practice become that 
tipping is, individually, a problem, as well as 
collectively. The traveler has a formidable cost 
to face in the tipping required. When the total 
passes $200,000,000 a year, it becomes a prob- 
lem which the American people will find more 
difficult of solution the longer it continues un- 
checked. 

The whole argument is summed up in this. 
Tipping is an economic waste because it is 
double pay for one service — or pay for no 
service. It causes one person to give wealth to 
another without a fair return in values, or with- 
out any return. The pay that employers give 
to their employees should be the only compensa- 
tion they receive. All the money given by the 
public on the side is unearned increment. 

The best condition for a fair exchange of 
wealth is where standards are known and prices 
are definite. Self-respect and sound economics 
flourish in such an atmosphere, whereas, if values 
are hazy and compensation is indirect and 
irregular, as it is under the custom of tipping, 
the bickering that follows degrades manhood. 

From an economic viewpoint, all businesses 
are on an abnormal basis which figure minimum 



THE ECONOMICS OF TIPPING 35 

wages, or no wages, to their employees on the as- 
sumption that the public will, through gratui- 
ties, pay for this item of service, 

" One service — one compensation " is the 
only right relation of seller and buyer, of pa- 
tron and proprietor. 



VI 

THE ETHICS OF TIPPING 

The moral wrong of tipping is in the graft- 
ing spirit it engenders in those who profit by it ; 
in the rigid class distinctions it creates in a re- 
public ; in the loss of that fineness of self-respect 
without which men and women are only so much 
clay — worthless dregs in the crucible of democ- 
racy. 

In a monarchy it may be sufficient for self- 
respect to be limited to the governing classes; 
but the theory of Americanism requires that 
every citizen shall possess this quality. We 
grant the suffrage simply upon manhood — 
upon the assumption that all men are equal in 
that fundamental respect. 

THE PRICE OF PRIDE 

Hence, whatever undermines self-respect, 

manhood, undermines the republic. Whatever 

cultivates aristocratic ideals and conventions in 

36 



THE ETHICS OF TIPPING 87 

a republic strikes at the heart of democracy. 
Where all men are equal, some cannot become 
superior unless the others grovel in the dust. 
Tipping comes into a democracy to produce that 
relation. 

Tipping is the price of pride. It is what 
one American is willing to pay to induce another 
American to acknowledge inferiority. It 
represents the root of aristocracy budding 
anew in the hearts of those who publicly re- 
nounced the system and all its works. 

The same Americans who profit by this un- 
democratic practice exert as much influence, 
proportionably, in the government of the repub- 
lic, as those who give tips, or those whose sense 
of rectitude will not allow them to give or ac- 
cept gratuities. Is a man who will take a tip 
as good a citizen, is his self-respect as fine, as 
the one who will not accept a tip, or who will 
not give a tip? Is the one as well qualified to 
vote as the other? 

What is a gentleman? What is a lady? 

Can a waiter be a gentleman? Can a maid be 
a lady? 

Would a gentleman or a lady accept a gra- 
tuity? 



88 THE ITCHING PALM 

What would happen if a tip should be offered 
to the average " gentleman " who patronizes res- 
taurants, and taxicabs and barber shops? He 
would have a brainstorm of self-righteous 
wrath ! 

THE TEST OF DEMOCEACY 

And there is the test. If a " gentleman " 
would not accept a tip, is it gentlemanly to give 
a tip? If a " gentleman's " self-respect would 
rebel at the idea of accepting a gratuity, why 
should not a waiter's self-respect rebel at the 
idea? 

" Oh, but there's a difference ! " 

The difference is there indeed. It is the dif- 
ference between aristocracy and democracy. In 
an aristocracy a waiter may accept a tip and 
be servile without violating the ideals of the sys- 
tem. In the American democracy to be servile 
is incompatible with citizenship. 

Every tip given in the United States is a blow 
at our experiment in democracy. The custom 
announces to the world that at heart we are 
aristocratic, that we do not believe practically 
that u all men are created equal " ; that the class 
distinctions forbidden by our organic law are 



THIT ETHICS OF TIPPING 39 

instituted through social conventions and flour- 
ish in spite of our lofty professions. 

Unless a waiter can be a gentleman, democ- 
racy is a failure. If any form of service is 
menial, democracy is a failure. Those Ameri- 
cans who dislike self-respect in servants are un- 
desirable citizens ; they belong in an aristocracy. 

TIPS DISLIKED BY RECIPIENTS 

Fortunately, conditions are not as rotten as 
the extent of the tipping practice would indi- 
cate. The vast majority of Americans who give 
tips do so under duress. At heart they loathe 
the custom. They feel that it is tribute exacted 
as arbitrarily and unrighteously as the tribute 
paid to the Barbary pirates. Some day this 
majority will rise up and deal as summarily with 
the tipping practice as our forefathers dealt 
with the Mediterranean tribute custom ! 

A great number of servants and workers in 
such lines as barber shops, restaurants and 
other public service positions are equally op- 
posed to the custom. They are caught up, 
however, in a system where they must conform 
to the custom or lose their employment. Many 
a barber or waiter or chauffeur whose self-re- 



40 THE ITCHING PAJLM 

spect rebels at taking a tip is forced to do so 
in order not to offend patrons. For nothing so 
stirs up a " gentleman " as for the person serv- 
ing to decline a tip. The reason is that he feels 
the rebuke implied in the refusal and knows in 
his conscience that the practice is wrong. We 
always grow more indignant at a just accusa- 
tion than at an unjust one! 

CONSCIENCE IS STIRRING 

The constant re-appearance of laws to regu- 
late tipping, in every section of the country, 
proves that the conscience of the people is stir- 
ring. The daily and periodical press now and 
then condemn the practice editorially in unmeas- 
ured terms and persons prominent in the public 
eye occasionally flare-up at some particularly 
flagrant manifestation of the itching palm. 
Governor Whitman, of New York, in an address 
to the Society for the Prevention of Useless 
Giving, said (as District Attorney then): 

" It is a brave thing, a womanly thing and a 
courageous thing for you to band together to 
combat an evil. And I hope you will stand 
pat. We are all growing to tolerate a kind of 
petty grafting that is not right, that is un- 
American. I object to having a man take my 



THE ETHICS OF TIPPING 41 

hat and hang it up for me and then accept a 
coin. I am strong and big enough to hang up 
my own hat. And I also prefer to carry my 
own bag to having a boy half my size carry a 
bag that is half his size and be paid with a 
coin. If he honestly earns the money he should 
have it as an earning, not as a gratuity. It is 
this giving of gratuities that is unlike us, it 
is a custom copied from a foreign country 
where conditions are different from ours," 

Where one person has the courage to speak 
out against this deep-rooted social convention, 
unnumbered thousands feel dumbly the same op- 
position to it. Harry Lauder, the Scotch come- 
dian, a citizen of a monarclry, on one of his tours 
in America, was reported by the newspapers 
as being disgusted with the development of so 
aristocratic a custom as tipping in America, the 
cradle of democracy. The press will yield many 
such evidences of condemnation for the prac- 
tice in high places. They are cited to prove 
that opposition to tipping is not a mere dis- 
taste among persons of limited means who can- 
not afford to tip generously. 

The cost of following the custom is an impor- 
tant item ; but those who consider it morally 
wrong gladly would pay any increase in charges 



42 THE ITCHING PALM 

that might follow the abolition of the custom. 
If the Pullman company should agree to abolish 
tipping if each patron would pay a quarter 
more for his berth it would be a long step in 
advance — though the custom should be abol- 
ished without additional charges to the public. 

HUSH MONEY 

The United States went through a period of 
muck-raking against graft among politicians 
and big business men. It w T as found that the 
idea of " honest graft " was shockingly preva- 
lent. The especially odious manifestations 
were dealt with, but the little springs and rivu- 
lets that combine to make the main stream were 
allowed to trickle along, unite, and become a 
torrent! Tipping is the training school of 
graft. 

Will a messenger boy who thinks that the pub- 
lic owes him gratuities develop into a man with 
sound morals? Will the bell-boy who works 
for tips grow up to be a policeman who accepts 
hush-money from the corner saloon-keeper? 
What is the difference between a tip to a bell- 
boy for doing what the hotel pays him to do 
and the hush-money to a policeman for over- 



THE ETHICS OF TIPPING 43 

looking the offence he is paid to detect? 

The tipping practice has created an atmos- 
phere of petty graft, the constant breathing of 
which breeds all other forms of dishonesty* It 
is small wonder that with so much avarice in low 
places that we have been shocked by graft in 
high places. The tipping custom is educating 
the grafting spirit much faster than the prose- 
cuting arm of the government can destroy it. 

There is a direct connection between corrup- 
tion in elections and the custom of tipping. 
The man who lives upon tips will not see the dis- 
honesty of selling his vote, so readily as if he 
discerned the immorality of gratuities. Of 
course, not all tip-takers sell their votes; but 
the moral laxity in one direction predisposes to- 
ward laxity in other directions. 

SPLITTING COMMISSIONS 

When a gratuity gets above a small amount, 
it is known as splitting commissions, or plain 
graft. Salesmen in their anxiety to sell goods 
will divide their commissions with the buyers. 
Frequently buyers or purchasing agents will de- 
mand this concession when it has not been of- 
fered. One New York department store found 



U THE ITCHING PALM 

that its piano buyer was accepting money for 
placing all orders with a particular manufac- 
turer. This store discharged its buyer, and yet 
the proprietor of the store doubtless tipped the 
waiter at lunch the same day he so acted ! He 
failed to see that a waiter (paid to serve pa- 
trons) who accepts tips, is precisely on the same 
level as a buyer (paid to purchase in the whole 
market), who concentrates his orders with one 
house for a fee, 

A clipping from The New York Times shows 
the attitude that employers are taking toward 
split commissions: 

" Several wholesalers in this market received 
a letter yesterday from a prominent dry goods 
retailer in the middle West saying that their 
buyers would be in this city to-day and that 
each one had signified her acceptance of a rule 
against taking petty ' graft.' The retailer 
asked that the salesmen try not to make this 
rule difficult to observe. The rule follows: 
4 You must not accept entertainment of any kind, 
even luncheon or dinner, from any one in New 
York. We will make an allowance, sufficient to 
cover all expenses, including entertainment.' " 

This retail merchant had discovered that a 
free theater ticket or dinner could create such 



THE ETHICS OF TIPPING 45 

a sense of obligation that his buyers would not 
be able to exercise the freedom of choice that 
was necessary. The New York salesmen of- 
fered the tickets and dinners in the form of gra- 
cious hospitality, but knew all the while that 
their real intent was to bind the buyers to them 
through a sense of obligation without regard to 
the merits of the goods. 

Thus the spirit of " honest graft " is spread- 
ing out in America. It grows with what it 
feeds upon. It is a moral miasma, the fumes of 
which are permeating all strata of society. 

THE BIBLE AGAINST TIPS 

Following are only a few of the many cita- 
tions in the Bible against tipping, gifts, gratui- 
ties, greed and like practices and impulses : 

Exodus 23 :8. And thou shalt take no gift ; 
for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth 
the words of the righteous. 

Ecclesiastes 7:7. Surely oppression maketh 
a wise man mad; and a gift destroyeth the 
heart. 

Proverbs 15:27. He that is greedy of gain 
troubleth his own house; but he that hateth 
gifts shall live. 

I Samuel 12:3. Behold here I am: wit- 



46 THE ITCHING PALM 

ness against me before the Lord, and before 
his anointed: whose ox have I taken? or whose 
ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? 
whom have I oppressed? or of whose hand have 
I received any bribe to blind mine eyes there- 
with? and I will restore it you. 

Isaiah 33:14-15. Who among us shall 
dwell with the devouring fire? . . . He that 
walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly 
... that shaketh his hands from holding 
bribes. . . . He shall dwell on high. . . . 

Job 15 :34. For the congregation of hypo- 
crites shall be desolate, and fire shall consume 
the tabernacles of bribery. 

Luke 12:15. And he said unto them, Take 
heed and beware of covetousness : for a man's 
life consisteth not in the abundance of the 
things which he possesseth. 



VII 

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIPPING 

Why the custom of tipping should be followed 
so generally when it is palpably a bad economic 
practice and ethically indefensible is a psycho- 
logical study with the same aspects that the 
slavery issue presented before the Civil War. 

The Puritan conscience allowed that institu- 
tion to grow to formidable proportions before 
arousing itself decisively, and it has allowed 
this equally undemocratic custom to attain na- 
tional ramifications. 

CASTE AND CLASS 

In its broadest statement, the psychology of 
tipping presents the two antipodal qualities of 
pride and pusillanimity. The caste system is 
not based upon the superiority of one class over 
another, but upon the pride that one stage of 
human development feels over another stage of 

human development. 

47 



48 THE ITCHING PALM 

A democracy cannot do away with different 
stages of development in the human mind. But 
it does do away with the belief of one stage of 
development that it is worthy of homage from 
another stage of development. Democracy does 
not concede that one man working w r ith his brain 
is superior to another man working with his 
brawn. Democracy looks beyond the accident 
of occupation, or the stage of human develop- 
ment, and sees every man as originating in the 
same divine source. " We hold these truths to 
be self-evident, that all men are created equal." 

In a monarchy, the craving of the human 
mind for approbation — the quality of pride — 
is cultivated into the class or caste system. 
Those citizens who have attained a larger meas- 
ure of culture than their fellow-men allow the 
false sense of pride in that culture to creep into 
their ideals and actions. They seek for some 
method of visualizing this assumed superiority, 
of obtaining the acknowledgment of it from their 
fellow-men. With an unerring instinct of hu- 
man nature they play upon the cupidity of those 
whom they desire to place in a servile relation. 
A gift of money wins the social distinction they 
covet. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIPPING 49 

Thus the tipping custom has its origin in 
pride, and it necessarily involves humility as a 
correlative condition. If all men are created 
equal, as we aver in our basic political creed, 
they cannot become unequal except artificially, 
except fey an agreement of one set of citizens to 
play the role of servitors for a consideration 
from another set of citizens. One set of citi- 
zens will become abased — that is, they will 
surrender their birthright of equality — in or- 
der that another set may strut around in a 
belief of superiority and indulge a sense of 
pride. 

NO SUPERIOR CLASS 

In a democracy, the gradations of culture ex- 
ist, but it is not permissible for one class of 
workers to assume a superiority over another 
class. That they do assume it is evident, and 
that for all practical social purposes we live 
and move and have our being on that assumption 
is evident, but in granting manhood suffrage, in 
allowing the proud and the humble to have an 
equal voice in government, we declare the social 
system a fungus growth. 

At the moment of the highest power of the 



50 THE ITCHING PALM 

institution of slavery it was not less wrong than 
at the moment the first ship-load of slaves was 
landed. No mere accumulation of material 
property can vitiate a principle of right. 
Hence, the very widespread acceptance of the 
tipping custom lends no authority to it. If 95,- 
000,000 Americans are engaged in tipping 5,- 
000,000 Americans, and if both the givers and 
the receivers apparently concur in the rightness 
of the custom, it does not thereby become right. 
We must go back to first principles to find the 
answer. 

TIPPING AND SLAVERY 

The American democracy could not live in 
the face of a lie such as slavery presented, and 
it cannot live in the face of a lie such as tipping 
presents. The aim of American statesmanship 
should be to keep fresh and strong the original 
concepts of democracy and to beat back the ef- 
forts of base human qualities to override these 
concepts. 

The relation of a man giving a tip and a man 
accepting it is as undemocratic as the relation 
of master and slave. A citizen in a republic 
ought to stand shoulder to shoulder with every 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIPPING 51 

other citizen, with no thought of cringing, with- 
out an assumption of superiority or an acknowl- 
edgment of inferiority. This is elementary 
preaching and yet the distance we have strayed 
from primary principles makes it necessary 
to prove the case against tipping. 

The psychology of tipping may be stated 
more in detail in the following formula : 

To one-quarter part of generosity add two 
parts of pride and one part of fear. 

FIRST INGREDIENT, GENEROSITY 

This is a subtle element and merges into a 
sense of obligation on slight provocation. You 
feel that your position in life is more fortunate, 
and pity enters your thought. If an extra serv- 
ice is given, in reality or in appearance, the 
servitor has pitched his appeal upon the ground 
of obligation. Few persons can rest easily un- 
til a sense of obligation is discharged through 
some form of compensation. The opportunity 
to balance the account comes when cash is being 
passed between you and the person serving. 
You offer a cash consideration proportioned to 
your sense of obligation. 

Inasmuch as the whole argument in favor of 



52 THE ITCHING PALM 

tipping is based upon the allegation that the 
servitor actually gives a value in extra service, 
the element of obligation will be examined 
closely. 

The Pullman porter or the waiter who can 
succeed in making a patron feel a sense of ob- 
ligation knows that he has assured a tip for him- 
self. The company or the restaurant business 
is a vague fact, while the man hovering over 
your berth or table is a most tangible relation. 
His art is to make the patron feel that he is re- 
sponsible for the careful attentions. In a sub- 
conscious way the patron knows that the price 
of the ticket or the food includes the service 
(wages of the porter or waiter) but the obse- 
quious alertness of the attendant overshadows 
this knowledge. It is present personality versus 
an abstract entity known as company or res- 
taurant. Hence, though the price of the ticket 
or the payment of the check pays for the por- 
ter's or waiter's service, the patron has been 
made to feel a second obligation which he dis- 
charges with a tip. 

CLOAKROOM TACTICS 

Thus tipping involves two payments for one 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIPPING 53 

service. Servitors understand clearly the psy- 
chology of the sense of obligation from experi- 
ment even though they could not read under- 
standing^ a book on psychology. A trial in 
Detroit over the division of the tips in the cloak- 
room of a restaurant furnished the following 
proof: 

" • How do you make people " cough up " ? ' 
queried the judge. 

" ' When they are going away I brush them 
down, and if they don't give me something I 
take hold of their lapel and say, " Excuse me," 
and brush them again. I pretend that's the 
only English I can speak. If they don't give 
me something then I hold on to their hats until 
they do give me something. I made $12 the 
first day I worked at the place.' 

" * Why did you pretend you could not speak 
English?' demanded the judge. 

" ' The more English you know the less tips 
you get.' " 

This morally obtuse hat-boy knew that the 
average person does not want something for 
nothing when dealing with serving persons, and 
he exploited this trait to the maximum. Pull- 
man porters and high grade waiters are more 
polished in the use of the same method, but it 



54 THE ITCHING PALM 

all gets back to the idea of creating a sense of 
obligation by actual or pretended service beyond 
the expected. 

Undoubtedly, a rigid adherence to the letter 
of duty would result in service that would be 
unsatisfactory, but this is to be surmounted 
rightly by the employer requiring flexibility of 
service from employees — not by the public pay- 
ing extra for affability, courtesy and attentive- 
ness, 

SECOND INGREDIENT, PRIDE 

Anxiety to cut a good figure before servants 
or allied classes of personal workers is a rich 
vein of pride which they do not fail to work for 
all it is worth. This kind of mind is always 
agitated from fear that the tipping has not 
been done handsomely enough. The satisfac- 
tion of having a fellow creature servile before 
your largess is a factor. The gratuity empha- 
sizes your position in the social scale. It 
stamps the giver as a gentleman or lady. The 
smirking attentiveness of the servitor is balm to 
vanity. 

Truly, if it were not for vanity there would 
be no tipping system. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIPPING 55 

THIRD INGREDIENT, FEAR 

The power behind the tipping custom is So- 
cial Convention and the fear of violating it. 
The so-called social leaders, actuated by aristo- 
cratic ideals, establish the custom and the crowd 
follow suit in a desire to do the " proper " 
thing. The " what will people say " mania 
holds the average person in an iron obedience to 
a custom which is innately loathed. It makes 
you conspicuous to be a dissenter. The serving 
persons understand this psychology perfectly. 
To drift along with the current of social usage 
is easiest, whereas, to go against it requires the 
highest order of courage. The multitude 
simply rate it as one of the petty vices and let 
it go at that. 

THE REMEDY 

Now what is the method of meeting and mas- 
tering this situation? 

Precisely the same reasoning emploj^ed by the 
Americans in 1801 against the custom of pay- 
ing tribute to the Barbary pirates. 

First, establish clearly in your mind that 
tipping is wrong. The slogan is : ONE COM- 
PENSATION FOR ONE SERVICE. With 



56 THE ITCHING PALM 

this premise, you can answer, seriatim, every 
argument which arises in favor of the custom. 
To the plea of generosity or obligation the re- 
ply is, full compensation for all service rendered 
is included in the bill you pay at the hotel desk, 
at the ticket window, to the barber-shop cashier, 
for the taxi-meter reading, and so on. Any 
extra compensation implied by the person serv- 
ing is an imposition and has no justification 
either as charity or obligation. 

Second, the promptings of pride must be 
recognized frankly and mastered by democratic 
ideals. When a tip is given, not only is an indi- 
vidual wrong done, but a blow is struck at re- 
publican government and the ideals upon which 
it is founded. Patriotism, as well as faithful- 
ness to self-respect requires that all customs 
which promote class distinctions shall be held in 
check. In entertaining a democratic attitude 
toward all Americans you are strengthening the 
government under which you live. You will not 
become less of a gentleman or lady if the so- 
cially submerged classes rise to a normal plane 
of self-respect. In declining to place a false 
valuation upon them you are promoting the 
true mission of Americanism. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIPPING 57 

" To thine own self be true, 
And it must follow as the night the day 
Thou canst not then be false to any man." 

Third, the fear of violating a social custom 
is overcome when you understand its pernicious 
nature. The general observance of it gives the 
custom neither rightness nor authority. With 
full assurance that the custom is wrong and 
with a measure of the courage Decatur showed 
before Tripoli, an apparently formidable, but 
really vulnerable, custom can be destroyed. 



VIII 

THE LITERATURE OF TIPPING 

Writers of books on etiquette uniformly ac- 
cept tipping as the correct social usage. They 
state just the amount that it is proper to give 
on various occasions and thus do their utmost 
to rivet the custom upon the people. 

A few extracts from such books will be given 
here to show how the custom is strengthened 
by the arbiters of etiquette. Those masses of 
Americans who are aspiring to a broader culture 
naturally turn to these books, and have their 
Americanism poisoned at the very start. They 
are educated to believe that tipping is essential 
to social grace. The feature departments of 
newspapers in answering queries about tipping 
usually confirm this impression, though now and 
then a side-swipe is delivered at the extortionate 
attitude of the serving persons, 

58 



THE LITERATURE OF TIPPING 89 



HOTEL FEES 

Taking up the hotel first, the following ad- 
vice is from " Everyday Etiquette " : 

"A porter carries a bag and he must be 
tipped; another carries up a trunk, he must be 
tipped ; one rings for ice water and the boy 
bringing it expects his ten cents ; one wants hot 
water every morning and in notifying the cham- 
bermaid of this fact, must slip a bit of silver 
into her palm. The waiter at one's table must 
be frequently remembered, and the head waiter 
will give one better attention if he finds some- 
thing in his hand after he shows the new arrival 
to a table, and, of course, on leaving one will 
give a fee. 

" It is usually best for a transient guest to 
fee the waiter at each meal, since another man 
will probably be in attendance at the next one. 
The usual rate is to give 10 per cent, of the sum 
paid for the lunch or dinner — ten cents being 
the minimum except at a restaurant of humble 
pretensions, where five will be gladly accepted 
by the waitress." 

If the waiters and other hotel employees had 
written the foregoing themselves could they have 
put it more strongly? Note the advice to tip 
the waiter at each meal because a new one may 



60 THE ITCHING PALM 

be on hand at the next meal ! This implies that 
the failure to tip is a grave offense, and that no 
risk of giving it must be taken. The patron 
may rest assured that a new one will be on hand 
at the next meal, for the head waiter shifts 
them about for exactly that reason — to make 
the patron tip again. 

However, in this same book, there is a reluc- 
tant note, as shown by the following extract : 

" We may rebel against the custom and with 
reason. But as not one of us can alter the state 
of affairs, it is well to accept it with good grace, 
or reconcile oneself to indifferent service/' 

Hotel managers will read this with entire ap- 
proval. And yet, consider what a contradiction 
it is for a hotel to advertise its service at such 
and such rates and then subject its guests to 
" indifferent service " if they do not cross an 
itching palm at every angle in the building! 

TIP OR BE INSULTED 

Any one who conscientiously objects to tip- 
ping knows how true it is that in the w best " 
places, with one or two notable exceptions, not 
only " indifferent service " but positively in- 



THE LITERATURE OF TIPPING 61 

suiting deportment may be expected from the 
servitors if the tips are omitted. 

The servitors are aggressive because their 
remuneration depends upon what they can work 
out of the patrons. The employer had hired 
them on the understanding that any compensa- 
tion they receive must come from the gratuities 
of patrons. In certain hotels the management 
carries the exploitation to the point of charg- 
ing the servitors for the privilege of working 
the patrons. The tipping privilege in one 
hotel has been sold as high as $1 0,000 a year! 

The economic pressure of tipping upon the 
patron causes one authority on etiquette, " Good 
Form For All Occasions," to exclaim : 

" Women of frugal mind endeavor to call on 
these functionaries as little as they can because 
the cents readily mount into dollars. The ele- 
vator-boy receives fewer tips than his peripa- 
tetic brother and need not be feed after a short 
stay." 

Here is proof that those who from economic 
or ethical reasons do not wish to tip are perse- 
cuted. They are advised that the easiest way 
to avoid the displeasure of servitors is to call 
on them for service as little as possible ! The 



62 THE ITCHING PALM 

two dollars or more they pay at the hotel desk 
for a day's domicile must be exclusively for the 
privilege of sitting in a chair or sleeping in a 
bed. The moment they require the service of 
any of the employees about the building, they 
are under a second obligation to pay. And 
yet, hotels prate about their " hospitality." 
The Barbary pirates were hospitable in the 
same way — after you paid the tribute ! 

HOW THE BOOKS HELP 

" The Cyclopaedia of Social Usage " states 
the tipping obligation as follows : 

H In a large and fashionable hotel generous 
and widely diffused gratuities are expected 
by the employees. The experienced traveler 
usually distributes in gratuities a sum equal to 
ten per cent, of the amount of the bill. It is 
customary when a lengthy sojourn is made in 
an hotel or pension to tip the chambermaid, the 
various waiters and the porter who does one's 
boots, once in every week. Once in every fort- 
night the head waiter's expectations should be 
satisfied, and where an elevator boy and door- 
man are on duty, they, too, have claims on the 
purse of the guest. 

" In a fashionable European hotel the rule 
of tipping a franc a week all around may safely 



THE LITERATURE OF TIPPING 63 

be observed during a long stop. But at the 
hour of departure something extra must be 
added to the weekly franc, and the head waiter 
will scarcely smile as blandly as need be if he 
is not propitiated with gold." 

Others, the writer says, have claims that it 
is well to recognize and meet before they urge 
them. 

Practically all the books on etiquette have 
the same note of subserviency to the custom. 
The point to be remembered is that, without be- 
ing conscious of it, these writers are in league 
with the beneficiaries of the custom to perpetuate 
and extend it. Most of the authors think the 
custom is right, they have the aristocratic view- 
point that servants should " know their place " 
and, in a republic, be made to acknowledge it 
by accepting a gratuity. Others simply take 
conditions as they find them and write to in- 
form readers how to avoid unpleasant incidents. 
But regardless of the opinion of the writers on 
the ethics of the custom, the books are one of the 
principal supports of the custom. 

Leaving the hotel, and considering the tipping 
custom in its relation to private hospitality, we 
find this advice in " Dame Curtesy's Book of 
Etiquette": 



64 THE ITCHING PALM 

" It is customary to give servants a tip when 
one remains several days under a friend's roof. 
The sum cannot be stated but common sense will 
settle the question." 

IN PRIVATE HOUSES 

The theory of tipping to servants in private 
homes where one may be a guest is based on the 
assumption that one's presence gives the serv- 
ants extra work and they should be compensated 
therefor. The extra work undoubtedly is in- 
volved, but in a really true conception of hospi- 
tality, should not the servants enter into it as 
much as the hosts? Or, if the guest entails ex- 
tra work should not the host's conception of 
hospitality cause him or her to supply the ex- 
tra compensation? The guest who tips servants 
in a private home implies that the host or hostess 
has not adequately compensated them for their 
labor. 

The tips under such circumstances are a re- 
flection upon the hospitality of the home, A 
host should ascertain if servants consider them- 
selves outside the feeling of hospitality and pay 
them for the extra work, thus giving the guest 
complete hospitality. It is bad enough to tip 
in a hotel, for professional hospitality; to tip 



THE LITERATURE OF TIPPING 65 

in a private home is, or should be, an insult to 
the host. 

ON OCEAN VOYAGES 

The same author advises in regard to the 
Pullman ear that " a porter should receive a tip 
at the end of the journey, large or small accord- 
ing to the length of the trip and the service 
rendered," and then considers the custom aboard 
a ship, as follows: 

" There is much tipping to be done aboard a 
ship. Two dollars all around is a tariff fixed 
for persons of average means, and this is in- 
creased to individual servants from whom extra 
service has been demanded." 

The traveler boards a ship with a ticket of 
passage which includes stateroom and meals 
and all service requisite to the proper enjoy- 
ment of these privileges. The stewards and 
other employees on board are expressly for the 
purpose of giving the service the ticket prom- 
ised. Hence, extra compensation to them may 
be justified only as charity. They cannot pos- 
sibly render extra service for which they should 
be paid. If a passenger called upon the 
engineer to render a service, that employee 



66 THE ITCHING PALM 

would be rendering an extra service, but stew- 
ards and stewardesses and like employees are 
aboard to render any service the passenger 
wants or needs. Moving deck chairs, bring- 
ing books, attending to calls to your stateroom, 
serving you food and the like duties are all 
within the scope of their regular employment. 
But read another writer's pronouncement: 

" At the end of an ocean voyage of at least 
five days' duration, the fixed tariff of fees ex- 
acts a sum of two dollars and a half per pas- 
senger to every one of those steamer servants 
who have ministered daily to the traveler's com- 
fort. 

" Thus single women would give this sum to 
the stewardess, the table steward, the stateroom 
steward, and, if the stewardess has not prepared 
her bath, she bestows a similar gratuity on her 
bath steward. If every day she has occupied 
her deck chair, he also will expect two dollars 
and fifty cents. 

" Steamers there are on which the deck boys 
must be remembered with a dollar each, and 
where a collection is taken up, by the boy who 
polishes the shoes and by the musicians. 

" On huge liners patronized by rich folks ex- 
clusively, the tendency is to fix the minimum 
gratuity at $5, with an advance to seven, ten 



THE LITERATURE OF TIPPING 67 

and twelve where the stewardess, table steward 
and stateroom steward are concerned." 

Then follow instructions to tip the smoking- 
room steward, the barbers and even the ship's 
doctor ! 

THE " RICH AMERICAN " MYTH 

It is small wonder, in view of the nature of the 
literature of tipping, that Europe has found 
American travelers " rich picking." Before 
embarking on the first trip abroad the average 
American informs himself and herself of what 
is expected in the w r ay of gratuities, and every- 
where the tourist turns in a library advice is 
found which effectually throws the cost of serv- 
ice upon the patron. Railroad and steamship 
literature usually avoids the subject because 
these companies do not want to bring this addi- 
tional expense of travel to the attention of the 
public, A steamship folder will state that pas- 
sage to London is ninety dollars, including 
berth and meals, but gives no hint that the tips 
will amount to ten dollars more ! 



IX 

TIPPING AND THE STAGE 

An almost invariable laugh-producer on the 
stage or in moving pictures is a scene in which a 
bell-boy or other servitor executes the cus- 
tomary maneuvers for obtaining a tip. 

Play producers know that the laugh can be 
evoked and any hotel scene is certain to include 
this bit of business. In seeking the explanation 
of the humor in such a scene, the answer will be 
found to be cynicism and the peculiar glee that 
people feel in observing others in disagreeable 
situations. 

COMIC WOES 

The slap-stick variety of comedy is based 
upon this trait in human nature. If a man is 
kicked down three flights of stairs, the spectator 
howls with delight. And, particularly, if a 
policeman is worsted in an encounter, the merri- 
ment is frenzied. Our Sunday comic papers 

68 



TIPPING AND THE STAGE 69 

depend almost exclusively upon violence for 
their humor. It is the final spanking the Kat- 
zen jammer Kids receive that brings the laugh. 
The climax to many other comics — notably 
Mutt and Jeff — is violence. 

Hence, a tipping scene on the stage or in mov- 
ing pictures creates a laugh because the public 
sees the tip-giver as a victim. He usually ex- 
aggerates his role by making the giving of the 
tip a painful act to himself, and the whole scene 
proves the contention in this discussion, namely, 
that tipping is wrong. If the spectators did 
not perceive the bell-boy as a bandit, and the 
hotel guest as a victim, no laugh would result. 
They have been in similar situations and know 
the feelings of the victim. 

Sometimes stage managers vary the incident 
so that the laugh is on the bell-boy, by having 
the guest refrain from tipping. Then the spec- 
tators laugh at the bell-boy's disappointment — 
again finding humor in misfortune. 

TIPS IN THE MOVIES 

With the development of moving pictures the 
utilization of this kind of humor has widened im- 
measurably. And the point to be considered 



70 THE ITCHING PALM 

here is the influence of such visualization of tip- 
ping upon the spread of the custom. Un- 
doubtedly tipping is increased by moving pic- 
tures and by stage representation. The public 
is made to feel that, despite the inherent wrong 
in the custom, it must be followed, or they will 
experience the unpleasantness at which they 
have just laughed. 

Another example of the itching palm which 
may be depended upon to produce a laugh is a 
scene in which a policeman is handed a bill for 
neglecting his duty in some respect. A well-to- 
do man will cross the law in some manner and in 
the play he winks an eye, the policeman turns his 
back with his palm extended, a bill is slipped 
into it, and he departs to the sound of the 
spectators 5 laugh. 

The effect of these scenes upon the public is 
dual. It either confirms their impression that 
all servants or officers are " approachable," or 
it creates among the unsophisticated the idea 
that tipping or graft is the customary and 
proper method of dealing with such classes of 
citizens. The worldly wise gain the first im- 
pression, and the spread of the tipping custom 
is assured by the second impression. 



TIPPING AND THE STAGE 71 

Moving pictures have extended this influence 
to every nook and corner of the country. The 
result is that persons who live in the smaller and 
more democratic communities are educated to 
the big city development of the itching palm. 
And the effect upon children and young people 
is pernicious in the extreme. 

IMPRESSING THE YOUNG 

A boy who sees a tipping scene in a moving 
picture gains the impression that it is smart to 
exact such tribute. Or he gains the impression 
that he has been overlooking a rich vein of 
easy remuneration. The photo-play directors, 
either consciously or unconsciously, are doing 
great damage to democratic ideals by featuring 
such scenes. It will not be surprising if, among 
the other evils fostered by moving pictures, the 
next generation displays a marked increase in 
the grafting propensity. The young people 
are being educated to think it natural. 

Thus, aside from the human impulses of pride 
and avarice, it is apparent that literature and 
the stage are strengthening the custom of tip- 
ping by their representations of it as humorous. 
People will not combat anything at which they 



n THE ITCHING PALM 

laugh. The itching palm has two doughty 
champions in the books on etiquette and the 
theaters. 

Actors, it would seem, have enough contact 
with the itching palm among stage hands to 
make them ardent advocates of reform, to say 
nothing of their contact with it in hotels. On 
the vaudeville stage especially the carpenter, 
the electrician, the property man and their co- 
workers must be " seen " with regular and gen- 
erous donations to insure a smooth act. In 
many theaters the stage hands have a definite 
scale of tips for regular duties that they per- 
form — and for which the management also 
pays them. 



THE EMPLOYEE VIEWPOINT 

From a waiter, or a porter, or a janitor's 
point of view, tipping is wrong only when it is 
meager. They regard this form of compensa- 
tion as not only just but usually too sparingly 
bestowed. ^ N^ 

Unquestionably, with any reform in the man- 
ner of compensation to persons engaged in do- 
mestic or other serving capacities, must go a 
reform in the attitude of the public toward 
servitors. The patron who abuses his privi- 
leges, who exacts of employees far more than he 
has the right to ask, who treats them as auto- 
matons without sensibilities or self-respect — 
such a patron must be handled simultaneously 
with the change in manner of compensation. 

Employers, particularly in hotels and like 

public places, will have to give more attention 

to seeing that employees are not mistreated by 

the swaggering, blatant, selfish type of patron. 

73 



74 THE ITCHING PALM 

This type abounds and has been developed 
largely by the tipping custom, that is, the ex- 
tremely servile attitude asumed by servitors in 
order to stimulate tipping has brought out the 
opposite quality of domineering pride in the 
patron. 

THE SORE SPOT 

No feeling so rankles in the mind as the sense 
of uncompensated labor. The thought that 
patrons have gotten something for nothing 
leaves a sore spot in the thought of servitors. 
And if they are employed in places where the 
only compensation they receive is from the 
gratuities of patrons, this soreness is incurable. 
The next time the patron appears he will be 
made to feel the displeasure of the employee. 
Thus, in one sense, it is the system that is 
wrong, a system which does an injustice to both 
employee and patron. 

Every employee has a fairly clear idea of his 
duties. Most employees scrupulously refrain 
from doing more than the duties for which they 
are paid expressly. Hence, when an employee 
over-steps this boundary he has fixed in his own 



THE EMPLOYEE VIEWPOINT 75 

mind, he has the sense of uncompensated labor. 
He feels a grudge either against the employer or 
the patron. He looks to one or the other to 
supply the extra remuneration for the extra 
service. 

As a consequence, personal service workers 
are nursing a grievance much of the time. 
Their conversation and thoughts are about some 
patron who has failed to compensate them, or 
has, in their judgment, inadequately compen- 
sated them. They devote little time to thinking 
of a reform in the system that would give them 
an adequate compensation from the employer 
and do away entirely with the patron-to-em- 
ployee form of compensation. 

THE MARTYR 

The tipping system is so established now that 
the individual who opposes it must be prepared 
to play the role of martyr, whether employee 
or patron. Employers who profit by the no- 
wage system dislike employees with a degree 
of self-respect that makes them rebel at gratui- 
ties. Such wages as are paid are so nominal 
that the employee cannot subsist upon them 



76 THE ITCHING PALM 

alone. He either has to quit that line of work 
or enter it and conform to the conventional 
methods. 

In Chapter V the equity of tipping certain 
employees was considered and the claim of other 
employees as to their rights will be considered 
briefly here. 

BAGGAGEMEN 

Tipping men who call for and deliver trunks 
has become a fixed custom in the cities and is ex- 
pected, though not so often practiced, in the 
smaller towns. The transfer company theoreti- 
cally charge for the complete operation of mov- 
ing the trunk from the home or hotel to the 
railroad station. But the men on the wagons 
or trucks exact tips for carrying the baggage 
up and down stairs or elevators. The question 
is, are they entitled to this extra compensation? 
The baggagemen argue that their business, 
strictly interpreted, is to carry the trunk from 
the house to the station and that going up stairs 
and into rooms is an extra service. Hence, 
they stand around and make it evident that they 
expect compensation from the patron, in addi- 
tion to their wages from the company. 



THE EMPLOYEE VIEWPOINT 77 

Their position is not tenable. A patron pays 
the company to get his trunk from wherever it 
may be and to deliver it to its destination. 
Whatever operations are necessary to get the 
trunk are the natural duties of the company 
and its employees. The charges of the com- 
pany are, or should be, based on the complete 
service. The exaction of extra compensation 
in the form of tips by the employees, therefore, 
is an imposition. In calling the company no 
person, tacitly or openly, agrees to the argu- 
ment that the trunk is to be moved from curb to 
curb. 

The understanding is that your baggage is 
to be removed from its customary place in the 
home to the customary place in the station or 
other destination. It would be as reasonable 
for baggagemen to dump a trunk outside a sta- 
tion and demand a gratuity from the railroad 
for bringing it inside, as to demand a gratuity 
from the patron for taking the trunk up or down 
stairs. Tipping to baggagemen is unnecessary. 
If the company pays inadequate wages the 
remedy lies not from the patron through tips 
out from the employer through the payment of 
increased wages. 



78 THE ITCHING PALM 

BOOTBLACKS 

Of late years the custom has grown up to tip 
bootblacks. This is in addition to the regular 
charge paid for the service and has no justifica- 
tion except in the false plea of the servitor that 
if the patron does not tip him he will have no 
compensation. Here it may be stated that the 
thought that the tip constitutes the only com- 
pensation the employee receives is the chief in- 
fluence in the mind of the patron. He feels a 
pity for the employee even though he objects to 
the bad economic system that enables employers 
to engage workers on such a basis. The em- 
ployees exploit this thought in the mind by lead- 
ing the conversation with the patron into the 
channel of compensation. At some time during 
the service he lets the patron know that the tips 
he receives are his only compensation and this 
arouses the sense of obligation in the patron 
who does not like to have his shoes shined for 
nothing, even though the payment at the desk 
covers the transaction. 

Any one who has patronized a restaurant 
regularly, or a bootblack stand, or a barbershop, 
or manicurist, or any public place, will recall 



THE EMPLOYEE VIEWPOINT 79 

how invariably the servitors bring up the sub- 
ject of tipping and always with the suggestion 
that they would be disabled financially if it were 
not for the generosity of the public. 

This is all a carefully and skilfully planned 
campaign to exploit the patron. 

BARBER SHOP PORTERS 

Patrons who do not tip barbers frequently 
tip the porters who brush them down. On the 
surface it seems that the porter's attentions in 
a barber shop are extra and deserve extra com- 
pensation. Yet, theoretically, no master bar- 
ber would admit that a patron of his shop has 
any other charges to pay than the regular tar- 
iffs. The porter is there as an extra measure 
of service from the shop. Practically, however, 
the shops all proceed on the assumption of tip- 
ping. The porter is a much-aggrieved indi- 
vidual if he is overlooked. In any sound eco- 
nomic system, the porter's compensation should 
come exclusively from the shop. If his atten- 
tions are decided to be extra, there should be a 
regular scale of compensation, as for a hair cut, 
which the patron should pay. So long as his 
services are furnished by the shop without be- 



80 THE ITCHING PALM 

ing included in the regular shop tariffs, the 
patron owes the porter nothing for his atten- 
tions. 

The solution of the whole tipping problem 
lies in the foregoing postulate — that if any 
employee is in a position to render an extra 
service there should be a regular scale of charges 
for such service. It is the irregular compensa- 
tion, depending upon the whim of the patron, 
that makes the practice economically unsound. 
No hotel, or other employer, should have on the 
premises any employee whose compensation de- 
pends upon chance. If a hotel stations an em- 
ployee in the washroom he should be there dis- 
tinctly as part of the service for which a patron 
pays at the cashier's desk. A porter in a bar- 
ber shop should be engaged exclusively at the 
shop's expense as part of the complete service 
for which a patron pays to the cashier. Em- 
ployers, however, are much too shrewd to scat- 
ter employees around on the formal understand- 
ing that the patrons are to compensate them. 
They pretend that they are engaged as an ex- 
tra measure of courtesy or service from the em- 
ployer and then are educated to exact, through 
tips, their compensation from the patron. 



THE EMPLOYEE VIEWPOINT 81 

DOOR MEN 

It would seem that if there were any place 
where the patron might feel free to forget his 
coin pocket, it would be in the use of doors. 
But it is customary now to tip door men. That 
is, you have to pay to enter a hotel, a restau- 
rant or other public place in order to spend 
money with the employer. The employer will 
smile blandly and assure you that no patron 
need tip the door man, but the door man will 
give unmistakable evidence to the contrary. 
The tipping of door men shows how the custom 
grows with what it feeds upon. To the devotee 
of the custom every underling has an itching 
palm that must be scratched with a coin and the 
employer rejoices because it relieves him of 
wage-payments. Tipping doormen is incom- 
prehensibly weak. Elevator men are in the 
same class. 

GUIDES 

In parks and other public places where the 
employer or the Government furnishes guides 
and where patrons pay a regular fee for being 
shown the sights, the guides carefully cultivate 



82 THE ITCHING PALM 

the tipping propensity. Their most common 
method is to start a conversation about how in- 
adequately they are paid for their work and the 
high cost of living. They play upon the sympa- 
thies of the sight-seers until at the end of the 
trip the feeling is strong that the guide should 
be remembered. He pockets the gratuity and 
looks for other game. The patrons overlook 
the fact that if he is underpaid the employer or 
the Government is at fault. He often works 
in the appearance of extra attentions to create 
the sense of obligation. It is clearly a case 
of double compensation for one service. 

HATBOYS 

The cloak-room is one of the best devices for 
throwing the item of wages to the shoulders of 
patrons. For some one to check and guard 
your hat and overcoat while you see a show or 
dine has a speaking likeness to a real extra 
service. But it is as counterfeit as the other 
pretenses of extra service. It is every restau- 
rant's or theater's duty to provide for hats 
and coats of patrons. The meal or the show 
cannot be enjoyed unless this preliminary func- 
tion is performed by the proprietor. When two 



THE EMPLOYEE VIEWPOINT 83 

dollars is paid for a theater ticket it also pays 
for this service, and extra compensation to the 
attendant in charge may be defended as charity 
but not as an obligation. A patron who buys 
a meal in a restaurant owes the cloak-room at- 
tendants nothing. He paid for their service in 
paying for the meal. Tips to hatboys are 
superfluous. 

JANITORS 

The autocrat of the basement is a man with a 
grievance even when generously tipped. From 
his viewpoint he is called upon to do a score of 
things outside his duties. Must he do these for 
nothing? He must not. The only question is 
who shall pay him. The janitor should be 
hired by employers upon the understanding that 
the renters have the right of way in utilizing his 
services. Or, apartments should be leased with 
a clear understanding of the janitor's duties, so 
that he will have no lee-way to exploit the 
renters. On the face of it, the idea of defining 
a janitor's services so that everything outside 
of the regulations would be extra service for 
which the renter should compensate him, seems 
difficult of execution. But the difficulty is less 



84 THE ITCHING PALM 

real than apparent. And in the meantime, the 
janitor regularly is tipped to do things for 
which he is paid by the employer. He is " out 
for his " as eagerly as the waiter or the Pullman 
porter. Hallboys in the apartment houses are 
equally avaricious. Now and then the metro- 
politan papers contain letters to the editor com- 
plaining of their exactions — pathetic letters 
from well-to-do persons paying thousands of 
dollars' rent for apartments! One way out 
would be to insert in a lease that the renter shall 
receive full and equal service without extra com- 
pensation to employees. 

MANICURISTS 

These young women have the best psycho- 
logical opportunity to exact tribute, particu- 
larly where the patrons are men. The personal 
contact is influential, and the plaintive tale of 
meager salary and small tips which she purrs 
into your ears, the meanwhile flashing a lan- 
guishing smile — it's a great little game which 
she plays for all it is worth! Some of them 
receive eight dollars a week in " salary," and 
the tips amount to enough to make their income 
thirty-five a week and more. The employer has 



THE EMPLOYEE VIEWPOINT 85 

the fifty, seventy-five cents or a dollar charge 
for the service as practically clear profit. 
Many men tip the manicurist as much as they 
pay for the service. Perhaps many of them 
feel that they get their money's worth in social 
enjoyment — not believing that the young 
woman bestows the same charm upon every 
other male victim ! u I feel sorry for that little 
Miss Brown. If it wasn't for the tips she 
couldn't live on her salary," said one sympa- 
thetic man. He objected to tipping as a rule, 
but here was a clear case where it was worthy ! 
No use arguing ethics with him. 

MESSENGERS 

The custom of pay to telegraph messenger 
boys by the recipients of messages is peculiarly 
reprehensible because it is fixing a standard of 
graft in his mind that will work out into worse 
practices in maturity. A boy given a tip has 
had his self-respect punctured in a dangerous 
way. He may grow up and out of such a con- 
ception of compensation, but it will be a strug- 
gle, and much of our police and other public 
graft had its origin in the cultivation of the be- 
lief that " tips " are proper. A messenger boy 



86 THE ITCHING PALM 

has absolutely no claim upon a patron for extra 
compensation. The price of a telegram in- 
cludes the cost of delivery. 

STENOGRAPHERS 

Public typists often expect gratuities. The 
regular charges are for " the house." They 
want something for themselves on the side. 
Sometimes the tips are so large that the em- 
ployer gets greedy and requires them to be 
turned in, as proved by the following extract 
from a want ad in the New York Times : 

" Remuneration half of all you make with 
weekly guarantee of $20; proceeds net more 
than guarantee. No smoking; tips must be 
turned in." 

It seems self-evident that anything given to 
stenographers beyond the regular charges for 
the work is pure waste. They cannot possibly 
give any service in return, and cannot retain 
the proper self-respect in accepting something 
for nothing. Many of them, however, take 
the tips simply to avoid offending patrons. 

The list of tip-takers is too extensive for in- 
dividual consideration. Bath attendants, bar- 
tenders, house servants, clerks — and so on 



THE EMPLOYEE VIEWPOINT 87 

through a lamentably long list, have the same 
moral disease. The contagion is spreading in 
an alarming way. Of course, the whole sys- 
tem is riding for a fall. 

The spurious and specious arguments of em- 
ployees in behalf of the custom and the timor- 
ous acquiescence of the public will alike yield 
before a robust and elemental Americanism. 



XI 

THE EMPLOYER VIEWPOINT 

" We face a condition, not a theory," as- 
sert those employers who defend their adapta- 
tion of wages to the tipping custom. " The 
public seems determined to bestow gratuities, 
and if we paid full wages in addition, our em- 
ployees would be the highest paid workers in 
the world." 

But two wrongs do not make a right. 

THREE KINDS OF EMPLOYERS 

Employers who profit by tipping are classi- 
fied as follows: 

1. Those who pay living wages and positively 
forbid gratuities. 

2. Those who pay average competitive wages 
and maintain a passive attitude toward gratui- 
ties. 

3. Those who pay minimum, or no, wages, 

and aggressively exploit the propensity to give, 

88 



THE EMPLOYER VIEWPOINT 89 

At present the first class constitutes almost 
an infinitesimal minority. Here and there in 
large cities there are barber shops which ad- 
vertise a " No-Tip " policy, and occasionally a 
hotel or restaurant. 

In the second class are most of the moderate- 
price places catering to the public. The em- 
ployers and employees welcome gratuities but 
do not make them the prime object in their 
relations with patrons. 

The third class includes the high-grade hotels, 
sleeping car companies, expensively conducted 
restaurants and like enterprises. This is the 
class which sets the pace through the patron- 
age of the socially or financially prominent. 

A few of the more noteworthy employers who 
profit by the custom follow : 

The Pullman Company, 

The Hotel Company, 

The Taxicab Company, 

The Transfer Company, 

The Steam Ship Company, 

The Master Barber, 

The Apartment House Owner, 

The Restaurant, 

The Telegraph Company. 



90 THE ITCHING PALM 

That an organized conspiracy exists between 
employers and employees to exploit the public is 
realized vaguely, if at all, by the average pa- 
tron. 

Proof of this allegation may be found at the 
cashier's desk of almost any restaurant or hotel. 
The waiter invariably is given change that will 
make it easy for the patron to tip. He re- 
turns with the change arranged in such a way 
on the tray that the patron must fumble over 
all of it if he wants the full amount. The em- 
ployer's and the waiter's theory is that, rather 
than do this, he will leave a dime or a quarter 
in one corner. In a barber shop the patron al- 
ways receives small change so that it will be easy 
to " remember " the porter. 

Yet, such a practice is the mildest indictment 
that may be brought against employers for en- 
tering a conspiracy to exploit patrons. 

SELLING THE TIP PRIVILEGE 

In New York and Chicago particularly, many 
employers went so far (and still maintain the 
practice) as to sell to outside persons and com- 
panies the privilege of collecting the tips in 
their places of business. That is to say, these 



THE EMPLOYER VIEWPOINT 91 

outside parties were to furnish waiters, cloak 
room attendants and other employees to the 
hotel or restaurant and depend upon the tips 
for their remuneration. 

So large was the sum realized from tips that 
the hotels and restaurants actually charged the 
outside parties thousands of dollars for the con- 
cession. In Illinois a law was passed in 1915 1 
aimed directly at this organized phase of the 
custom. It prohibited hotels and others from 
selling tipping privileges. The men who owned 
such privileges promptly went to law to test the 
constitutionality of the act. To the tip-taker 
anything is unconstitutional that interferes 
with his graft! 

At the time the law went into effect, the situa- 
tion was reported in the Chicago Tribune as 
follows : 

" The state will have a fight on its hands be- 
fore the Chicago tip trust . . . releases its 
clutch on the pocketbooks of hotel and restau- 
rant patrons. 

" At midnight last night . . . there was no 
indication the largess was going anywhere else 
than it has gone before ever since a commercial 
genius capitalized the well-known generosity of 



92 THE ITCHING PALM 

the dining and wining public — straight into the 
coffers of the trust." 

The manager of one of the leading hotels said 
that lawyers for the hotel had served notice on 
the head of the biggest of Chicago's three tip 
trusts to withdraw his minions. 

" Do you contemplate returning part of the 
money paid for the concession? " he was asked. 

" That, 55 the manager replied, " is a detail." 

"Do you think it possible (the head of the 
tip trust) will resist expulsion? " 

" Hardly. We'll just put in a crew of our 
own and that will end it." 

" Have you heard a report that the tip trusts 
contemplate standing by their guns and, if 
necessary, charging a 10 cent fee for checking 
hats and coats, anticipating the tip? " 

" That's preposterous." 

After such evidence, patrons of hotels and 
other public service places hardly will feel as 
cheerful in giving tips as they may have felt 
before being enlightened. Here was a typical 
instance of a hotel advertising such and such 
rates for rooms and food with the plain in- 
ference that patrons had no other obligation. 
Then the management goes out and sells the 



THE EMPLOYER VIEWPOINT 95 

right to exploit the patrons, thereby filling its 
dining rooms and cloak rooms with employees 
who must exact tips if they are to be paid at 
all for their work ! 

ARE YOU A BENEFACTOR? 

A small part of the public cares nothing 
about this and will tip regardless of the condi- 
tions of employment of the servitors. This ele- 
ment simply enjoys the grandiloquent role of 
Bestower of Largess. But the vast majority 
of Americans has followed the custom under 
duress. This majority finds it repugnant to 
tip on the assumption that the employee alone 
profits by its generosity; and to discover that 
the employer as well profits by it — in fact 
secretly devises methods of encouraging the 
tipping — will confirm the majority in the 
thought that the custom is wholly bad. 

Under which school of economics, or ethics, 
can such a system be justified? 

The assertion of employers that tipping is 
the spontaneous impulse of patrons and that 
they cannot afford to pay living wages in addi- 
tion is seen to be without foundation in conspicu- 
ous instances. Such spontaneity as exists they 



94 THE ITCHING PALM 

stimulate and exploit for their own profit. 

Conceding that the development of tipping 
has thrown employment upon an abnormal 
basis, the question arises, if tipping is abolished 
should the increase in wages be borne exclusively 
by the employer? 

To the extent that employers make extraordi- 
nary dividends out of the custom the extra cost 
of operation through normal wages should be 
borne by them without increased tariffs to pa- 
trons. Competition in the hotel business, for 
example, has been adjusted to the custom of 
tipping and the sudden throwing of a bona 
fide wage system upon such employers, with- 
out an increase in revenues, would be disas- 
trous. 

A REASONABLE SOLUTION 

The solution in certain instances might be 
found in a joint obligation of patron and em- 
ployer. The employer says : " I have been 
able to give you food at such and such a price 
because I have not had to charge to it the cost 
of waiter hire. If the public discontinues gra- 
tuities to my employees, I must raise the price 
of food to cover this deficit." The patron re- 



THE EMPLOYER VIEWPOINT 95 

plies : " Upon proof that your food tariffs 
have not included the item of waiter-hire, I 
will pay more for my meals if they are served 
free." 

The goal of a reform in tipping is to make 
one payment — and that one to the employer 
— cover every expense of the patron. 

Even if the public should have to pay more 
for food, lodging and other service, if tipping 
is abolished, an immense advance in sound eco- 
nomics and democratic ethics would be made in 
eliminating the double-payment system. Where 
two payments are made — to employer and 
employee — it is inevitable that the patron will 
lose. 

It should be understood, however, that a large 
part of the $200,000,000 or more given an- 
nually by Americans in gratuities is sheer waste 
because it is given for absolutely nothing in re- 
turn. Such waste should be eliminated without 
consideration of employer or employee. 

So long as employers assume that the public 
will pay part or all of the wages of employees, 
so long will the employees be under the necessity 
of resorting to outrageous tactics — coddling 
the patron who does tip, insulting and neglect- 



96 THE ITCHING PALM 

ing the one who does not tip — in order to ob- 
tain pay for their services. 

Employers must come to the viewpoint that 
tipping is morally wrong, and therefore of 
necessity, economically unsound. The money 
they make out of tipping is tainted money. 
Employees should be engaged on wages that are 
adequate without regard to any gratuities that 
may be given. 



XII 

ONE STEP FORWARD 

When the Hotel Statler, in Buffalo, an- 
nounced that a guest need not tip its employees 
in order to get satisfactory service, a sensa- 
tion was sprung upon hotel managers and the 
traveling public. Nothing more emphatically 
shows the abnormal state of mind toward tip- 
ping than that such an elementary right should 
be affirmed and cause surprise in the affirmation. 

A SOUND CODE 

Following is its Code to employes on the 
practice of tipping: 

u The patron of a hotel goes there because he 
expects to receive certain things served with 
celerity, courtesy and cheerfulness. 

" The persons who are to fetch and carry 
him these things will be those whose portion it is 
to render intimate, personal services to others. 
Since time immemorial, this class of servitors 
has been of the rank and file. 

97 



98 THE ITCHING PALM 

" Now and then a server is found — a waiter, 
a bootblack, a barber or a bell boy — who adds 
a bit of his own personality to his services. 
Such a one shows a bit more intelligence — in- 
itiative — perspicacity — than his fellows. The 
patron finds his smaller wants anticipated, and 
is pleased. He feels that the servant has given 
him something extra and unexpected — and he 
wants to pay something extra for it. 

" He tips. 

" Of course there are abuses of the tip. A 
rich bounder wants something more than other 
hotel guests, and he futilely tries to get it by 
throwing money about. 

" His tips are insults, and his reward Ser- 
vility instead of service. 

"Or — 

" An individual wishing to be thought a 
6 good fellow 9 ADMINISTERS tips with the 
advice to 4 buy a house and lot,' etc. 

"Or — 

" An infrequent traveler, having the time of 
his life, tips out of sheer goodheartedness. 

" These types help to constitute the 
' Public' 

" It is the business of a good hotel to cater 
to the Public. It is the avowed business of the 
Hotel Statler to please the public better than 
any other hotel in the world. 

" Statler can run a tipless hotel if he wants 
to. 



ONE STEP FORWARD 99 

" But Statler knows that a first-class hotel 
cannot be maintained on a tip-less basis, for the 
reason that a small but certain per cent, of its 
guests will tip, in spite of all rules. 

" Statler can and does do this : He guar- 
antees to his guests who do not wish to tip, 
everything — EVERYTHING — in the way 
of hotel service, courtesy, etc., that the tipper 
gets. 

" Let's make that a bit stronger — guests do 
NOT have to tip at Hotel Statler to get 
courteous, polite, attentive service. 

" Or, for final emphasis, we say to Statler 
guests : Please do NOT tip unless you feel like 
it ; but if you DO tip, let your tipping be yield- 
ing to a genuine desire — not conforming to an 
outrageous custom. 

" Any Statler employee who is wise and dis- 
creet enough to merit tips is wise and discreet 
enough to render a like service whether he is 
tipped or not. 

" And he is wise and discreet enough to say 
' thank you ' when he gets his tip. 

" In this connection let this be said : 

" The man who takes a tip and does not 
thank the tipper does not feel that he has earned 
the tip any more than a blackmailer feels that 
he has earned his blood money. 

" Any Statler employee who fails to give 
Service, or who fails to thank the guest who 
gives him something, falls short of the Statler 



100 THE ITCHING PALM 

Standard. We always thank any guest who 
reports such a case to us. Statler does not 
deal summarily with his helpers, any more than 
he deals perfunctorily with his guests — but the 
tip-grafters get short shrift here." 

FOR THE BENEFIT OF GUESTS 

To understand the spirit of management 
which could issue such instructions to its em- 
ployees in the face of the opportunity to ex- 
ploit the public, as most hotels do and so throw 
the whole cost of wages upon the patron, it is 
necessary to consider other sections of the Code 
treating of professional hospitality. 

" Hotel Statler is operated primarily for the 
benefit and convenience of its guests. Without 
guests there could be no Hotel Statler. These 
are simple Facts easily understood. 

" The Statler is a successful hotel. The 
Reason is, that every Waiter in this hotel, every 
Hall-Boy, the Chambermaid, the Clerk, the 
Chef, the Manager, the Boss Himself, is work- 
ing all the time to make them FEEL ' at home.' 

" Hotel service — that is, Hotel Statler serv- 
ice — means the limit of Courteous, Efficient 
Attention from Each Particular Employee to 
Each Particular Guest. This is the kind of 
service a Guest pays for when he pays us his 
bill — whether it is for $2.00 or $20.00 per 



ONE STEP FORWARD 101 

day. It is the kind of Service he is entitled to, 
and he NEED NOT and SHOULD NOT pay 
ANY MORE. 55 

NOT HOSPITALITY 

Compare the attitude of management toward 
guests as revealed in this code with the bristling, 
belligerent attitude of employees in other first- 
class places where tipping is undisciplined ! In 
the average hotel where the management en- 
courages the tipping for economic reasons the 
bell-boy will make a scene if you fail to tip him 
after he carries your suit-case from the lobby 
to your room. Every other employee has the 
same spirit — he has to have it if he is to be 
compensated at all, for the employer puts it 
squarely up to him to work the guest for his 
wages. 

Apparently this hotel reached the conviction 
that this was not hospitality. 

Then the conviction was reached that a guest 
" need not and should not pay any more " for 
hotel service than the rate paid at the desk. 
From this it was logical to bring the employees 
to a new conception of service and to stop the 
piratical practice tow r ard guests who do not 
tip. 



102 THE ITCHING PALM 

It is particularly significant to note the as- 
sertion that the proprietor can run a tipless 
hotel if he wants to. That is an interesting 
declaration. It proves that those managers 
who exploit the tipping propensity deliberately 
do so for reasons of greed. 

Then the reason for not running a tipless 
hotel is stated to be that " a small but certain 
per cent, of its guests will tip in spite of all 
rules." Here is evidence that the public has 
its measure of blame for the custom as well as 
the avarice of managers. This hotel declares 
that its conception of hospitality is to leave 
the guest free in his relation toward employees. 
But note this ! It does not leave the employees 
free in their attitude toward guests. 

UP TO THE EMPLOYER 

The foregoing distinction is the crux of the 
whole tipping problem. If managers will re- 
strain and discipline employees so that they 
will not run riot in their eagerness to exact toll 
from patrons the tipping evil will be reduced 
to a minimum. 

THE FIRST STEP 

It is not the idea underlying this discussion 



ONE STEP FORWARD 103 

to consider that a satisfactory disposal of the 
tipping custom has been made when managers 
insure equal treatment for those who do not 
tip in comparison with those who do tip. Noth- 
ing short of the complete abolition of the cus- 
tom can be the goal in a republic. But as a 
long stride toward the goal, the Code cited 
above is noteworthy. It constitutes the first 
immediate step that any hotel may take. 

The public would find immense relief in the 
general adoption of the foregoing idea — that 
tipping must " be yielding to a genuine desire 
— not conforming to an outrageous custom." 
Inasmuch as the vast majority of Americans 
who tip do so only because they are afraid not 
to conform to an outrageous custom, this plan, 
honestly enforced upon employees, will reduce 
the followers of the custom to the small per- 
centage of the public who tip because of pride 
or moral obtuseness. A way can be found to 
handle this element when the ma j ority have been 
freed. 

Once the proof is at hand that tipping can 
be handled the conclusion is unescapable that 
the managers who knuckle to the custom are 
u corrupt and contented." They are on pre- 



104 THE ITCHING PALM 

cisely the same moral level as their employees. 

THE GUEST'S RIGHTS 

In the meantime, the individual patron has 
the right to and should proceed on the theory 
that he is entitled to everything in the way of 
service for the one payment. This is his com- 
mon law right even if no special laws regulat- 
ing tipping are in force. 

The public is at a great disadvantage in com- 
bating the tipping evil when the managers leave 
the issue to be settled between the patrons and 
the employees. A bell boy can commit an of- 
fense to a patron who does not tip that is per- 
fectly tangible to the patron but difficult to re- 
port to the manager. Unless the manager 
takes a positive hand and instructs his em- 
ployees in a manner similar to the above Code 
it is likely that most persons will continue to 
pay tribute rather than be insulted and 
neglected. 

In Chicago, the Young Men's Christian As- 
sociation operates a nineteen-story hotel where 
tips are prohibited, and this organization gen- 
erally discourages the custom in its enterprises. 



XIII 

THE SLEEPING-CAR PHASE 

The Pullman company stands in the public 
mind as the leading exponent of tipping. It 
certainly is the largest beneficiary of the cus- 
tom, as a simple calculation will show. 

The company has about 6,500 porters, who 
receive $27.50 a month in wages. Suppose 
the porters received no tips. The company 
then would have to pay living wages. Assum- 
ing that the long hours of work would not at- 
tract desirable porters under a straight wage 
system without at least $60 a month pay, each 
one of the 6,500 would have an increase of 
$32.50 a month, or $390 a year. 

This would mean an increase in the com- 
pany's annual pay-roll of $2,535,000! 

In other words, the company saves about 

two and a half millions a year through the tips 

given to its porters. What part of the large 

105 



106 THE ITCHING PALM 

annual dividend is furnished by this saving is 
a secret of the company's books. 

Some of these porters after many years' 
service receive $42 a month in wages, and this 
would bring down the foregoing estimate, 
though not to any radical extent. The tips 
bring their incomes to $100, $150, $200 and 
more a month! There are, of course, many 
runs on which the porters derive smaller 
amounts in gratuities, and the best runs are 
given as a reward for long and faithful service. 

WHAT THE PULLMAN MANAGER SAID 

The Walsh Commission, appointed to investi- 
gate industrial conditions in the United States, 
in 1915 singled out the Pullman tipping prac- 
tice for investigation. Some of the testimony 
given by the general manager of the company 
follows : 

" The company simply accepts conditions as 
it finds them. The company did not invent 
tipping. It was here when the company be- 
gan." 

" What do you say to making tipping unlaw- 
ful and paying employees a living wage?" 
Chairman Walsh asked. 

" If such a condition arises, I presume we 



THE SLEEPING-CAR PHASE 107 

would have to pay wages necessary to get the 



" Do you get your negroes in the South? " 

" Yes, we have been looking after them in the 
South. The South is a bigger field and the men 
there are more adapted for the work than the 
Northern negroes." 

" Well, be plain," Chairman Walsh said, 
" are the negroes from the South more docile 
and less independent than those from the 
North? " 

" Well, no, but the Southern negro is more 
pleasing to the traveling public. He is more 
adapted to wait on people and serve with a 
smile." 

• •••••• 

" Can a man live on $27.50 a month and rear 
a family ? " 

" Really, I don't know. He might." 

" Does the Pullman company have in mind 
the liberality and kindness of the public when 
it fixes that rate of pay ? " 

" Well, I should say that tips have something 
to do with it. I didn't make the rates of pay." 



" A porter must call passengers during the 
night, polish shoes, answer bells, and look after 
the safety and comfort of the passengers at all 
hours, must he not? " 



108 THE ITCHING PALM 

" Yes. Ho is reprimanded, suspended or dis- 
charged for infractions of the rules." 

" What is your attitude toward the question 
of an organization among your employees? " 

" I felt that the movement to form a federa- 
tion of our employees was a selfish one on the 
part of a few." 

WHAT THE PORTERS SAID 

The Commission also called several porters 
to testify. They stated that they could not 
live without the tips. One porter with twenty- 
one years' service behind him testified that he 
receives $42 a month in wages, while the tips 
averaged about $75 a month, or $117 income 
from the company and the public. 

Another porter receiving $27.50 a month 
testified that his tips averaged about $77 a 
month. He was described as wearing two 
diamond rings and being tastefully dressed. 

The conductors receive from $70 to $90 a 
month in salary, and it was brought out before 
the Commission that many do not consider it 
dishonest to " knock down " on seat sales. 
This is accomplished partly at the company's 
expense, and partly at the expense of patrons 
— especially unsophisticated travelers who buy 



THE SLEEPING-CAR PHASE 109 

a whole seat but have •other passengers sit be- 
side them, the conductor pocketing the extra 
payment. This practice is limited to day 
runs. There is also the opportunity to over- 
charge. 

That the Pullman company gives the public 
good service through its porters is indisputable. 
The only question is whether the public should 
pay extra for this service. If a porter with 
an income of $117, say, receives only $27.50 
from the company, the public is paying three- 
fourths of his wages and the company only one- 
fourth. Where the porters have incomes of 
$150 to $200 a month the company pays one- 
fifth to one-eighth of the amount and the public 
pays from four-fifths to seven-eighths ! 

SERVICE INCLUDED 

The price of a ticket on a sleeping car is as 
much as a patron should pay the Pullman com- 
pany, and it should carry with it adequate 
porter service. 

A passenger enters a car in spick and span 
condition as a rule. At the end of the journey, 
through no fault of his own, he may be dusty, 
and it becomes the obligation of the Pullman 



110 THE ITCHING PALM 

company to discharge him in as good condi- 
tion as when he entered the car. The porter Is 
there for this service. Hence, to give him a 
tip for a " brush, 9 ' or for any other service he 
may have rendered to make the use of the com- 
pany's property comfortable, is a superfluous 
payment. 

The company has a school for training a 
porter in which he is taught a rigid discipline 
of attentions to passengers, all of which tend 
to create in the passenger a sense of obligation 
toward the porter. Yet not one of these atten- 
tions calls for a gratuity if they are examined 
fairly. 

The porter is psychologist enough to know 
that to create the illusion that he has rendered 
an extra service is as good for producing a tip 
as actually to do so. Hence he will come 
around with a pillow, or shine your shoes dur- 
ing the night unsolicited, or execute some other 
maneuver that arouses a feeling of obligation. 
The shining of shoes is outside his ordinary 
duties, but he has no valid claim for compensa- 
tion unless specifically requested to perform this 
service. In his mind is the constant reminder 
that if the passenger does not make a dona- 



THE SLEEPING-CAR PHASE 111 

tion his pay envelope from the company will 
not meet his bills. 

WHAT THE PRESS SAID 

Among the many editorial comments that 
the disclosures of the Walsh Commission evoked 
is the following from the St. Louis Republic: 

The most captious critic of the Pullman 
company cannot deny that it merits a unique 
distinction. Other corporations before now 
have underpaid their employees . . . but it re- 
mained for the Pullman company to discover 
how to work on the sympathies of the public in 
such a manner as to induce that public to make 
up, by gratuities, for its failure to pay its em- 
ployees a living wage. 

It began this forty years ago, when the 
" plantation " darky of ante-bellum days was 
still abroad in the land. It used him, his 
pathetic history, his peculiar attitude toward 
the white man, for the accomplishment of its 
purpose. There at the end of the journey, 
after the traveler had paid $2, $2.50 or $3 for 
his berth, stood the porter with his whisk broom 
and his smile. 

And back of him was the pathetic fact, in- 
dustriously circulated, that " the company " 
did not pay him enough to live on, so that he 
was dependent on the gratuities of passengers 



112 THE ITCHING PALM 

who had already paid full price for accommo- 
dations and services. We were expected to 
pay him simply because the Pullman company 
didn't. And we paid him. Tens of millions 
of passengers have paid him millions of dol- 
lars. 

It wasn't really philanthropy to the porter; 
it was philanthropy extended to the Pullman 
company, which was glad to have the fact of its 
meanness in its relations to its colored em- 
ployees — ill-informed of the rights of work- 
ingmen and dependent by instinct — published 
to the world. 

It was the Pullman company which fastened 
the tipping habit on the American people and 
they used the negro as the instrument to do it 
with. 

It may be remarked in closing this phase of 
the discussion that an act of Congress forbid- 
ding tips on inter-state carriers would effectu- 
ally reach the Pullman situation. 



XIV 

THE GOVERNMENT AND TIPPING 

It has been asserted in this discussion that 
tipping is incompatible with a democratic form 
of government. Yet we find officials of our 
Government following the custom and allowing 
tips as a legitimate item of expense of travel- 
ing to be paid out of the public treasury. 

FREE AND EQUAL 

This state of affairs proves that the work 
of 1776 and 1787 was limited practically to 
one phase of democracy, namely, the political. 
Washington and Jefferson lived in a day when 
political equality was the passionate ideal. 
This they and their associates achieved in ample 
measure. They gave the waiter or the barber 
or the bootblack an equal voice in government 
with themselves. 

Let those Americans who think that the 

abolition of tipping would be too radical a step 

113 



114 THE ITCHING PALM 

toward social democracy consider how repulsive 
the attitude of Washington and Jefferson was 
to the aristocratic thought of their day. No 
matter what arguments the aristocrats pre- 
sented against political democracy, their real ob- 
jection was just this granting of voting equality 
to persons whom they rated as socially sub- 
merged. 

But having founded our government upon 
political democracy, the straight line of develop- 
ment is toward social and industrial democracy, 
in order to complete the ideal entertained by 
Washington and Jefferson. That both of these 
idealists tipped servants and that Washington 
owned slaves is indisputable, but they left rec- 
ords that prove that they merely " suffered it to 
be so now." Washington clearly foresaw the 
trouble in which slavery would involve his coun- 
try, and would have freed his slaves if he could 
have done so without precipitating what to him 
appeared a greater evil in view of all the cir- 
cumstances of his day. 

The Revolutionary period did all that can be 
asked of one generation when political equality 
was established. It remains for our generation 
to finish the work of democracy by establishing 



THE GOVERNMENT AND TIPPING 115 

social and industrial democracy. The prospect 
of a street cleaner or your valet being your 
social and industrial equal may seem either 
Utopian or undesirable, but it must be remem- 
bered, as stated, that two centuries ago the 
thought of granting an equal vote to such per- 
sons was precisely as distasteful to the aristo- 
cratic mind. 

EQUALITY AND UNIFORMITY 

Much loose thinking along these lines would 
be obviated if every one could learn clearly the 
distinction between " equality " and " uniform- 
ity." It is the thought of uniformity that 
makes most persons belligerent toward demo- 
cratic impulses in industry or society. They 
dislike the idea of a dead level of compulsory 
uniformity. A bootblack and a banker are 
" equal " in the right to vote, but they are not 
" uniform " in function or culture. Social 
democracy will abolish an aristocratic custom 
like tipping so that every citizen will stand upon 
an equality of self-respect. It will delete the 
adjective " menial " from any form of service 
so that a garbage collector will stand in as hon- 
orable a relation to society as a lawyer. But 



116 THE ITCHING PALM 

social democracy will not and cannot make 
naturally uncongenial minds live in a relation 
of compulsory fellowship. 

Thus in the United States we have only one- 
third of a democracy. The other two-thirds 
— social and industrial democracy — must be 
attained before we can consider our govern- 
ment as ideal. The tipping custom stands 
squarely in the path of this attainment. The 
slavery system is not worse in competition with 
free labor than is the tipping system of com- 
pensation. In neither system are values de- 
termined by merit or production. 

In the list of the 5,000,000 Americans with 
itching palms were national or city govern- 
ment employees like mail carriers, garbage col- 
lectors and policemen. In the larger cities a 
system of giving gratuities to these and other 
government employees has grown up that em- 
phasizes the distance we have to travel to at- 
tain true democracy. 

Any one of these three classes of govern- 
ment employees is paid well for the service he 
renders. Yet there are mail carriers who will 
lose a courteous, friendly bearing toward those 
who fail to " remember " them at Christmas, or 



THE GOVERNMENT AND TIPPING 117 

at more frequent intervals, or who will actually 
curtail the service they are paid to render. 

MISGUIDED GENEROSITY 

There seems to be something about the con- 
tinual contact of a person serving and a per- 
son served that makes the one think the other 
owes him something on the side. A mail car- 
rier will bring your mail once, twice or several 
times a day for a period and then enters the 
feeling that he is entitled to some substantial 
token of appreciation of his faithful, cheerful 
service, other than the compensation paid by 
the government. Often the person being served 
feels a generous appreciation of good service 
and bestows a token of it without the person 
serving having expected or wanted it. The 
tipping custom is not wholly the outgrowth of 
greed. It is frequently misguided generosity. 
Where the error creeps in is in expressing ap- 
preciation in terms of money. Self-respect is 
satisfied with verbal appreciation. 

As an employer the government, of all em- 
ployers, should set an example of true democ- 
racy, should practice sound economics and 
ethics in the relations it permits between its 



118 THE ITCHING PALM 

employees and the public. There is no justifi- 
cation from any viewpoint for giving gratui- 
ties to public servants. If garbage collectors 
render slipshod service to citizens who fail to 
tip them — and they do this regularly — a com- 
plaint should bring immediate relief. It does 
not now because the higher officials are under 
the same illusion about tipping that envelopes 
the subordinates. 

An inspector of street cleaning in Philadel- 
phia was investigating a complaint against a 
street sweeper in a residence district. The 
sweeper told him that he felt the complaint must 
be ill-founded and that the people in the neigh- 
borhood must be satisfied with his sweeping, be- 
cause he had recently received from residents 
in one block twenty-one dollars in Christmas 
tips. 

How many public servants in your own neigh- 
borhood did you tip last Christmas? 

It should not be assumed that the indictment 
here read is against all mail carriers or garbage 
collectors, or policemen. With tipping, as 
with many other abuses " there are more than 
seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to 
Baal." 



GOVERNMENT AND TIPPING 119 

THE GOLDEN RULE 

At Christmas the spirit of generosity finds 
many curious and misdirected expressions. 
Policemen on certain traffic corners are remem- 
bered by many gifts of money and cigars from 
persons who have no other contact with them 
than a nod from a limousine as they pass the 
corner daily. Why should the feeling of ap- 
preciation run to thought of money as a token 
of expression? It is because the persons who 
give entertain the idea that the policeman is 
in a stratum of society under them and that, 
being an underling, his self-respect will not be 
hurt by offering money. The same persons 
would not think of offering a friend money and 
would be insulted if any one offered them money. 
The golden rule is a dead letter to them. 

Some clubs have handled the tipping custom 
by forbidding gratuities during the year and 
then allowing the members to contribute to a 
fund to be divided among the servitors at Christ- 
mas. This is a great improvement over the 
tipping custom but it is still short of the demo- 
cratic ideal. A servant who is adequately paid 
for his work throughout the year has no more 



120 THE ITCHING PALM 

call upon the generosity of patrons at Christ- 
mas than a clerk in a shoe store from whom you 
purchase shoes four or six times a year. 

GOVERNMENT HOTELS 

The Government operates hotels in the Canal 
Zone, and tipping is permitted. Guests who 
fail to tip are treated by the servitors precisely 
like they are treated in private hotels, but the 
writer, who boarded three months in one of the 
Government hotels in the Canal Zone, during 
which time he did not tip the waiter, found that 
a complaint to the manager about poor service 
would result in the prompt discipline of the of- 
fending servitor. This is more than can be 
said of many privately operated hotels. 

In this connection, it is noteworthy that the 
only whisper of graft in the building of the 
$409,000,000 canal was the charge made 
against the purchasing agent of the Commis- 
sary that he split commissions with the houses 
from which he purchased supplies. Splitting 
commissions is the itching palm in commerce. 

It would seem that before passing laws to 
regulate tipping among citizens, the Govern- 
ment, state and national, should be able to 



GOVERNMENT AND TIPPING 121 

come into court with clean hands. Until the 
Government rids its service of the spirit of graft 
the law-makers are beating around the bush. 



XV 

LAWS AGAINST TIPPING 

Efforts to abolish or regulate the custom 
of tipping have been made in the Legislatures 
of practically all of the States. Often after 
passing legislative barriers the laws have fallen 
before Executive vetoes, so that scarcely half a 
dozen States now have statutes on the subject. 

The State of Washington adopted a law pro- 
hibiting tipping, but it was so generally ignored 
that the Legislature of 1913 repealed it. This 
shows that, at first blush, a social custom of 
long standing has a stronger influence upon the 
people than a conscientious conviction registered 
in a new law. 

Yet, as abortive as the legal campaign against 
tipping has been thus far, the constant recur- 
rence of the issue in the Legislatures, and the 
voluntary attempts at regulation being made 
by hotels and other public service enterprises, 

show that the propaganda is making headway 

122 



LAWS AGAINST TIPPING US 

and that there are great moral resources in 
the people ready to be called into action. 

CUSTOM ABOVE LAW 

The opposition to tipping is unorganized, 
undisciplined and inarticulate, while the bene- 
ficiaries of the custom, with a munificent tribute 
to nerve activity, are upon a highly efficient 
basis of operation. Even with a law at his 
back to stiffen his moral resolution, the aver- 
age citizen feels more afraid of violating the 
custom than of violating the law. It is be- 
cause of the intangible nature of the custom 
from his viewpoint. A waiter can do so many 
things to annoy a non-tipping patron that the 
patron cannot present in the form of a concrete 
complaint, yet which are quite real and irritat- 
ing. The upshot is that the patron swallows 
his conscientious objection to the custom and 
pays the tribute for fair service. 

He knows that a failure to tip means a strug- 
gle three times a day in the dining room for his 
rights and the same struggle at every point of 
contact with the itching palm. Rather than 
have his efficiency interfered with by the mental 
disturbance such rows create, he pays the price. 



1U THE ITCHING PALM 

But this type of man will make excellent ma- 
terial in the regular ranks even if he lacks the 
initiative of a lone hand against big odds. 
When the movement against tipping reaches 
the stage where a spokesman and leader is pro- 
duced, all the latent opposition w T ill spring into 
effective cooperation. 

THE IOWA LAW 

Some of the laws are aimed exclusively at the 
takers of tips and others at the givers as well. 
The Iowa law is in the first class, as follows : 

Sec. 5028-u. Accepting or Soliciting Gratu- 
ity or Tip. Every employee of any hotel, res- 
taurant, barber shop, or other public place, and 
every employee of any person, firm partnership, 
or corporation, or of any public service cor- 
poration engaged in the transportation of pas- 
sengers in this state, who shall accept or solicit 
any gratuity, tip or other thing of value or of 
valuable consideration, from any guest or pa- 
tron, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and up- 
on conviction thereof shall be fined not less than 
five dollars, or more than twenty-five dollars, or 
be imprisoned in the county jail for a period 
not exceeding thirty days. 

This law makes the mere acceptance of a tip 



LAWS AGAINST TIPPING 1<I5 

illegal and it also heads off any attempt to 
circumvent the law on a technicality by pro- 
hibiting the acceptance of " other thing of value 
or of valuable consideration." 

THE WISCONSIN BILI, 

The Wisconsin bill, which the Governor ve- 
toed on the ground that it curtailed " personal 
liberty " was intended to penalize the giving of 
the tip, and was worded as follows : 

Sec, 45751, Every employee of any hotel, 
restaurant or public place and every employee 
of any person, firm or of any public service 
corporation engaged in the transportation of 
passengers or the furnishing of food, lodging 
and other accommodations to the public in this 
state who shall receive or solicit any gratuity 
or tip from any guest or patron shall be guilty 
of a misdemeanor. Every person who shall 
give or offer any gratuity or tip to any person 
or employee prohibited from receiving or solicit- 
ing the same by the provisions of this section 
shall also be guilty of a misdemeanor. 

" Every hotel, restaurant, firm and public 
service corporation engaged in the transporta- 
tion of passengers or in furnishing food or 
lodging or other accommodations to the public 
shall keep a copy of this law posted in a con- 
spicuous place in such hotel and restaurant and 



126 THE ITCHING PALM 

in the dining or sleeping cars of any firm or 
public service corporation mentioned in this sec- 
tion. Any persons violating any of the pro- 
visions of this section shall be guilty of a mis- 
demeanor and upon conviction shall be fined not 
less than five dollars, nor more than twenty-five 
dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail 
not to exceed thirty days." 

The demand for this bill was so strong among 
the members of the Legislature that it almost 
was passed over the Governor's veto. The 
provision that a copy of the law must be posted 
in the places where the public comes into con- 
tact with the itching palm is a most essential 
one. It reassures patrons to see it and gives 
them a present stimulus for standing upon their 
right to good service for one payment. 

THE COURTS AND TIPPING 

The courts, in declaring such laws unconsti- 
tutional have proceeded upon the common law 
right of one citizen to give away his goods or 
property in the form of money to any other 
citizen. A tip, the judges say, represents a 
gift within the meaning of this common law 
right. But the instances of such altruism are 
exceedingly rare. 



LAWS AGAINST TIPPING 127 

Even the judges who so decide know that the 
tips they give are not bona fide gifts out of the 
goodness of a generous heart. Tips are given, 
by the devotees of the custom, from a sense of 
obligation. They pretend to feel that the 
servitor actually has rendered a service for 
which the tip is payment. The proof of this 
is found in the fact that such persons never 
go about giving money gifts indiscriminately. 
Their gifts are exclusively to the employees of 
public service enterprises, showing that no 
thought of charity or generosity enters their 
minds. 

The courts some day will come to the con- 
clusion that a gift of money to any serving per- 
son is a special relation that is subject to the 
police power of the State. The special circum- 
stances surrounding the gift will be taken into 
consideration. Then it will be seen that the 
gift was made for something the patron did 
not receive; for something for which he is re- 
quired to pay twice and that the motives of the 
gift were pride, or fear or a sense of obligation 
falsely aroused. 

While the courts are so scrupulous in pre- 
serving the common law right to make gifts, 



128 THE ITCHING PALM 

they might give consideration to the equally in- 
dubitable right of a patron to receive full value 
for his money, and to receive such value for one 
payment. 

It may be, that to write an anti-tipping law 
that will stand the test of judges educated in 
the old school of thought about gratuities, legis- 
lators will have to approach the subject from 
this viewpoint of preserving a patron's com- 
mon law right to satisfactory service for one 
payment. For instance, a law specifically de- 
fining the right of a patron to have food served, 
or to use a hotel room or sleeping car facilities, 
in short to patronize any public service place, 
with only one charge, and that to be paid ex- 
clusively to the proprietor, might strike an ef- 
fective blow at " the universal heart of Flunky- 
ism." 

The courts will assert that the foregoing 
right exists without a special statute, and it 
does. Still the average citizen does not think 
of instituting a suit against a hotel, or swear- 
ing out a warrant against the manager or an 
employee to enforce his common law right to 
service at one price. If there is a specific 
statute against tipping there is a more tangible 



LAWS AGAINST TIPPING 129 

inducement to stand up for one's rights and 
there is more likelihood that redress will be 
granted. The defense of tipping on the " per- 
sonal liberty " plea, like the defense of the 
liquor business on the same plea, will grow 
feebler and feebler until judges cease to take 
the aristocratic viewpoint. 

THE SOUTH CAROLINA LAW 

The South Carolina law goes a step ahead 
of either the Iowa law or the Wisconsin bill in 
the provision that the employer shall not per- 
mit the custom of tipping, in addition to pro- 
visions prohibiting the giving or receiving of 
tips by patrons or employees. The law fol- 
lows: 

" It shall be unlawful in this State for any 
hotel, restaurant, cafe, dining car company, 
railroad companies, sleeping car company or 
barber shop to knowingly allow any person in 
its employ to receive any gratuity commonly 
known as a tip, from any patron or passenger, 
and it shall be unlawful for any patron of any 
hotel, restaurant, cafe, dining car or for any 
passenger on any railroad train or sleeping car 
to give any employee any such gratuity and it 
shall be unlawful for any employee of any hotel, 
restaurant, cafe, dining car, railroad company, 



130 THE ITCHING PALM 

sleeping car company or barber shop to receive 
any such gratuity. 

" By ' gratuity 9 or ' tip ' as used in this Act, 
is to mean any extra compensation of any kind, 
which any hotel, restaurant, cafe, dining car, 
railroad company, sleeping car company or 
barber shop manager, officer or any agent there- 
of in charge of the same, allows to be given to 
any employee and is not a part of the regular 
charge of the hotel, restaurant, cafe, dining car, 
railroad company, sleeping car company or 
barber shop, for any part of service rendered, 
or a part of the service which by contract it is 
under duty to render. No company or incor- 
poration shall evade this Act by adding to the 
regular charge, directly or indirectly, anything 
intended for or to be used or to be given away 
as a gratuity or tip to the employee. All 
charges must be made by the company or pro- 
prietor in good faith as a charge for the service 
it renders, inclusive of the service which it fur- 
nishes through employees. 

" Each hotel shall post a copy of this Act in 
each room and each restaurant, cafe and barber 
shop shall post at least two copies of this Act 
in two conspicuous places in their places of 
business, and each railroad company shall post 
two copies of this Act in their waiting rooms 
and passenger rooms at passenger stations in 
cities of three thousand inhabitants or more, 
and each sleeping car and dining car shall have 



LAWS AGAINST TIPPING 131 

posted therein at least one copy of this Act. 
" Any person or corporation failing to post 
as required shall be fined not less than ten dol- 
lars for such failure and each day of failure 
shall constitute a separate and distinct offense 
and any person violating any of the other pro- 
visions of this Act shall be subject to a fine of 
not less than ten dollars or more than one hun- 
dred dollars, or be imprisoned for not exceed- 
ing thirty days." 

This South Carolina law was an evident ef- 
fort to cover the custom of tipping in a man- 
ner that would permit of no evasions. It de- 
fines a " tip " and prohibits surreptitious 
gratuities and makes employer, employee and 
patron equally liable to prosecution. Yet, it 
falls short of an ideal law because its operations 
are limited to seven places frequented by the 
public and does not cover private places where 
the itching palm flourishes, such as apartment 
houses and boarding houses. 

To stop tipping in hotels, restaurants, cafes, 
dining cars, railroad stations and cars, sleep- 
ing cars or barber shops will be a long stride in 
the right direction, but the need of stopping 
tipping to messenger boys, janitors and other 
employees of apartment houses, maids and 



132 THE ITCHING PALM 

waitresses in boarding houses, garbage collect- 
ors, mail carriers and policemen among govern- 
ment employees, trunk transfermen, guides, 
steamship employees and others too numerous 
to cite, is fully as urgent. 

THE IDEAL LAW 

The ideal act will be evolved through these 
repeated approximations and through experi- 
ence. In a broad outline it must include (1) 
a clear definition of a tip, (2) a statement of 
a patron's right to service for one payment ex- 
clusively to the proprietor, (3) a prohibition 
against subterfuges in the charges whereby pa- 
trons may give tips, (4) the wages paid by an 
employer to be considered as presumptive evi- 
dence of his attitude toward tipping, (5) a re- 
quirement that employers shall give patrons a 
definite understanding of the service to which 
they are entitled, (6) any actual extra service 
to be compensated for direct to employer after 
being appraised and charged for by the em- 
ployer, (7) the giving of money or gifts to em- 
ployees to be taken out of the class of " char- 
ity " and " personal liberty," (8) the employer, 
the employee and the patron to be subject to 



LAWS AGAINST TIPPING 133 

the same penalty for violating the law and the 
conviction of any one of the three to be fol- 
lowed automatically by the conviction of the 
other two for the same offense, (9) the law to 
be applicable to any employer and any em- 
ployee in any relation with the public or with 
individuals, in private home or public place, 
(10) a prohibition against operating any con- 
venience for the public in which the rate of pay- 
ment shall be left to the whim of the patron, 
such as cloak rooms, the tariffs to be displayed 
and exacted impartially of every patron if the 
employer assumes that patrons must pay extra 
for the service, (11) an adequate provision for 
acquainting patrons with the law through post- 
ing it or otherwise directing their attention to 
it, (12) the granting of licenses to operate pub- 
lic service places only upon condition that gra- 
tuities are not to be permitted, directly or in- 
directly, (13) the granting to a patron who 
has been denied fair service of redress in addi- 
tion to the punishment of the guilty employee 
and employer, (14) an adequate scale of penal- 
ties, fine or imprisonment for any violation of 
any part of the law. 

It is not presumed that if a law were drawn 



134 THE ITCHING PALM 

to embody the foregoing provisions that the 
tipping custom would be strangled. Only ac- 
tual tests in the courts will produce the ultimate 
intent. Of course, if employers and employees 
and patrons were actuated by a desire to main- 
tain their relations upon a basis of self-respect 
so circumstantial a law would be unnecessary, 
but many of them are not thus actuated and a 
minute restraint will be imperative at the outset 
and until a normal ideal of democracy is cul- 
tivated. 

THE NEBRASKA ACT 

The bill introduced in the 1915 session of 
the Nebraska Legislature does not penalize the 
patron for giving gratuities and seems to be 
aimed at the practice of " split commissions " 
as well as at tipping. It has a maximum fine 
of one hundred dollars, or imprisonment of 
sixty days and the emploj^ers only are speci- 
fied for conviction. The act follows : 

" No employee or servant shall accept, obtain 
or agree to accept, or attempt to obtain, from 
any person, for himself or for any other per- 
son, any gift, gratuity or consideration as an 
inducement to perform or as a reward for hav- 
ing performed any duty or service for which 



LAWS AGAINST TIPPING 135 

such employee or servant has been employed or 
is to be paid by the employer or master, firm or 
corporation of such employee or servant. 

" No employer or master, firm or corporation 
shall permit or allow any of his or their em- 
ployees or servants to solicit or to accept any 
gift, gratuity or consideration as an induce- 
ment to perform or as a reward for having per- 
formed any duty or service for which such em- 
ployee or servant has been or is to be paid by 
such employer or master, firm or corporation. 

" Each and every employer or master, firm 
or corporation who carries on business as the 
keeper of a hotel, inn, restaurant, cafe, place 
for the sale of alcoholic beverages, barber shop 
or place for polishing boots and shoes, or who 
operates a railroad dining, buffet, sleeping or 
parlor car, shall post up or cause to be posted 
up in at least two conspicuous places in the 
premises in which such business is carried on, or 
in such car, a notice that tipping, or the giving 
of any gift or gratuity to any servant or em- 
ployee, is forbidden under penalty of fine or im- 
prisonment. 

" No employer or master, firm or corpora- 
tion shall give or agree to give or offer to any 
employee or servant any gift, gratuity or con- 
sideration as an inducement to perform or as a 
reward for having performed any duty or serv- 
ice for which such employer or servant has been 



136 THE ITCHING PALM 

or is to be paid by the employer, master, firm or 
corporation employing such servants. 

" Each and every employer, master, firm or 
corporation who shall violate any of the pro- 
visions herein made shall be deemed guilty of a 
misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be liable 
in each and every case to a fine of not less than 
ten dollars nor more than one hundred dollars, 
or to imprisonment in the county jail of the 
proper county not less than ten nor more than 
sixty days, or to both such fine and imprison- 
ment, at the discretion of the court." 

THE TENNESSEE LAW 

The Tennessee law was adopted upon the espe- 
cial solicitation of the traveling salesmen of the 
State. These men live constantly in touch with 
the itching palm and find the tribute not only 
burdensome to themselves but to their employ- 
ers. The act is much like the South Carolina 
law, and a notable feature is Section 6: 

" That it shall be the duty of the circuit 
judges and the courts of like jurisdiction to 
especially call the attention of the grand jury 
to the provisions of this act at each term of the 
court." 

The foregoing provision makes it certain that, 
even if patrons are timid about obeying the 
law and if employers and employees disregard 



LAWS AGAINST TIPPING 137 

it, the fight against the custom will go right on, 
just as does the fight against bootlegging after 
saloons have been banished from a city. The 
Tennessee law also has a more elaborate scale 
of fines, as the following section shows : 

" Be it further enacted that any hotel, res- 
taurant, cafe, barber shop, dining car, railroad 
or sleeping car company, and the manager, of- 
ficer or agent of the same in charge, violating 
this act or wilfully allowing the same to be 
violated in any way, shall each be subject to a 
penalty of not less than $10 nor more than $50 
for each tip allowed to be given. If any per- 
son shall give an employee any gratuity or tip 
each person shall be subject to a fine of not 
more than $25 and not less than $5 for each 
offense. If any of the above employees shall 
receive a gratuity or tip he or she shall be sub- 
ject to a fine of not more than $25 nor less than 
$5 for each offense. Should any hotel, restau- 
rant, cafe, barber shop, dining car, railroad 
company or sleeping car company fail, neglect 
or refuse to post notice of this act as required 
herein, such hotel, restaurant, cafe, barber 
shop, dining car, railroad or sleeping car com- 
pany shall be subject to a fine not to exceed 
$100 for each day it shall fail." 

Naturally if this law is enforced with any 



138 THE ITCHING PALM 

fidelity by the grand juries, not to mention such 
actions as may be instituted by the public, tip- 
ping in Tennessee in the specified public service 
place will become extinct, or assume a guise not 
covered by the law. But if tipping is restrained 
only in the seven places enumerated and allowed 
to be practiced unrestrained everywhere else, 
only a limited industrial democracy will be at- 
tained, and the part of the custom left alive will 
spread by its own insidious processes to the 
places preempted. 

THE ILLINOIS COMPROMISE 

When the public conscience is fully aroused 
to the need of stifling this custom, the legal mind 
will be able to draw up a law that will prevent 
tipping anywhere and under any circumstances. 
The Illinois law is a particular example of a 
half-way measure in that it seeks only to pro- 
hibit the practice of leasing tipping concessions 
to employees. 

" That it shall be unlawful for the owner, 
proprietor, lessee, superintendent, manager or 
agent in any hotel, restaurant, eating house, 
barber shop, theatre, store building, office build- 
ing, factory, railroad, street railroad, fair 



LAWS AGAINST TIPPING 139 

ground, baseball or football ground, hall used 
for public meetings or entertainments, or any 
other building, office, or space which is a place 
of public accommodation or public resort, to 
rent, lease or permit to be used any part, space 
or portion thereof, for any trade, calling or oc- 
cupation, or for the exercise of any privilege by 
any person, company, partnership or corpora- 
tion for the purpose of accepting, demanding or 
receiving, directly or indirectly, from the cus- 
tomers, patrons or people who frequent such 
places of public accommodation or public re- 
sort, gratuities or donations, commonly called 
tips, in addition to the regular, ordinary and 
published rate of charge for work performed, 
materials furnished or services rendered, pro- 
vided, that nothing in this section contained 
shall be construed to prohibit any employee or 
servant from accepting or receiving gratuities 
or donations commonly called tips, if such gra- 
tuities or donations are not accounted for, paid 
over, or delivered, directly or indirectly, in 
whole or in part, to any person, company, part- 
nership or corporation, but are retained by such 
employee or servant, as and for his absolute 
and individual property. 

" Any lease, contract, agreement or under- 
standing entered into in violation of the pro- 
visions of section 1 of this act shall be abso- 
lutely void. 

" Any person, company, partnership or cor- 



140 THE ITCHING PALM 

poration or any officer or agent thereof, violat- 
ing the provisions of this act shall be deemed 
guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction 
shall be fined in any sum not exceeding ten thou- 
sand dollars for each and every offense, and, in 
addition thereto such person, officer or agent, 
in the discretion of the court, be sentenced to 
the county jail not less than three months and 
not more than one year." 

LEGALIZED EOBBEItY 

This Illinois law is an instance of an Ameri- 
can Commonwealth specifically and deliberately 
recognizing tipping as legal and right. It turns 
loose the tip-pirates upon the public with full 
governmental sanction, but stipulates that in 
their piracy they shall not organize into a trust, 
as they had done in Chicago and in all large 
cities. 

The Illinois law can be commended to the 
extent that it seeks to break up the organized 
traffic in tips, but its recognition of tipping on 
an unorganized basis is equivalent to the ac- 
tion of some European governments in paying 
out of their treasuries tribute to the Barbary 
pirates for the privilege of sailing the high seas. 
Thomas Jefferson's democracy rebelled at this 



LAWS AGAINST TIPPING 141 

and he freed the whole world from the outrage- 
ous custom. 

IN MASSACHUSETTS 

Massachusetts has a law to prohibit the cor- 
rupt influencing of agents, employees or serv- 
ants, but it is aimed specially at the practice of 
" splitting commissions " and does not operate 
to restrain tipping in the State. A salesman 
sometimes will offer to give a buyer a bonus or 
part of his commission if an order is placed, and 
this practice is causing the business world con- 
siderable thought, as employers realize that a 
buyer who will accept favors from salesmen will 
not exercise unbiased judgment. It is the itch- 
ing palm a plane above tipping owing to the 
larger amount involved, and is akin to the graft 
of public officials. The law follows : 

" Whoever corruptly gives, offers or prom- 
ises to an agent, employee or servant any gift 
or gratuity whatever, with intent to influence 
his action in relation to his principal's, em- 
ployer's or master's business ; or an agent, em- 
ployee or servant who corruptly requests or ac- 
cepts a gift or gratuity or a promise to make a 
gift or to do an act beneficial to himself under 
an agreement or with an understanding that he 



142 THE ITCHING PALM 

shall act in any particular manner in relation to 
his principal's, employer's or master's business ; 
or an agent, employee or servant, who, being 
authorized to procure materials, supplies or 
other articles either by purchase or contract 
for his principal, employer or master, or to em- 
ploy service or labor for his principal, employer 
or master receives, directly or indirectly, for 
himself or for another, a commission, discount 
or bonus from the person who makes such sale 
or contract, or furnishes such materials, sup- 
plies or other articles, or from a person who 
renders such service or labor; and any person 
who gives or offers such an agent, employee or 
servant such commission, discount or bonus, 
shall be punished by a fine of not less than ten 
dollars nor more than five hundred dollars, or 
by such fine and by imprisonment for not more 
than one year." 

Although the Arkansas and Mississippi laws 
against tipping are not mentioned, a compre- 
hensive idea of the extent and nature of the 
opposition to the custom in the United States is 
presented in the review of the bills introduced 
in or enacted by the Legislatures of Iowa, Wis- 
consin, South Carolina, Nebraska, Tennessee, 
Illinois, and Massachusetts. All the other 
States have no laws against tipping. Consider- 



LAWS AGAINST TIPPING 143 

ing the fact that no organization has been 
formed to agitate for this reform, these spon- 
taneous State efforts are significant. 



XVI 

SAMUEL GOMPERS ON TIPPING 

Labor has the strongest interest of any ele- 
ment of citizens for seeing the 5,000,000 men, 
women and children with itching palms elevated 
to a normal plane of self-respect. For noth- 
ing in America more certainly promotes class 
distinctions than tipping. It is essentially 
aristocratic, and labor has attained its widest 
development in democracy. 

WAITERS AGAINST THE TIP CUSTOM 

Occasionally waiters and some other work- 
ers in a serving capacity have attempted to 
organize and place their work upon the wage- 
system, rather than the combination wage-and- 
tip system, or the strictly tip system, now exist- 
ing. In New York in 1913 the waiters struck 
for higher wages and serious riots occurred be- 
fore they capitulated to the old system. The 

hotels preferred the tipping system because it 

144 



SAMUEL GOMPERS ON TIPPING 145 

throws the cost of waiter hire upon the public, 
whereas, an adequate wage system would neces- 
sitate a readjustment of their business. 

Even where the waiters and barbers have or- 
ganized they have not always shown aggressive 
efforts to abolish or regulate the tipping cus- 
tom. The barbers, for instance, are highly or- 
ganized, and any real desire upon their part to 
abolish the custom would be followed by imme- 
diate reform. But it is evident that the tipping 
system of compensation is attractive to many 
persons who serve the public because it yields 
more pay than a wage system. In the higher 
strata of workers particularly the tips are so 
large as to stupefy moral sense, and this minor- 
ity dominates the majority by setting a stand- 
ard of " proper " social usage. 

A LABOR LEADER ON TIPS 

Mr. Samuel Gompers, president of the Ameri- 
can Federation of Labor, has opposed tipping 
as an irregular form of compensation, and in 
response to an inquiry for his opinion he in- 
closed a letter he had written to the manager of 
the Hotel Stowell, in Los Angeles, where a non- 
tipping rule is enforced. 



146 THE ITCHING PALM 

* Hotel Stowell, 

Los Angeles, Calif. 
" Replying to your letter of November 28th 
I beg to say that I found your hotel and service 
eminently satisfactory and was particularly 
pleased with the rule you have enforced as to no 
tipping. 

" While, of course, I have followed the usual 
custom of giving tips, yet I have maintained the 
principle of tipping to be unwise and that it 
tends to lessen the self-respect of a man who 
accepts a tip. 

" Very truly yours, 
" (Signed) Samuel Gompers, 
" American Federation of Labor." 

This letter is interesting as revealing the at- 
titude of many prominent Americans, namely, 
that while they conform to the custom rather 
than be subjected to insults, annoyance and 
poor service, they really consider it inimical 
to self-respect. 

EUROPEAN TIPS 

Mr. Gompers in his letter said: "You have 
my permission to quote my opinion upon this 
subject in any way that you may desire," and 
gave permission to have reproduced here the 
chapter in his book, " Labor In Europe and 



SAMUEL GOMPERS GN TIPPING 147 

America," which deals with tipping in Europe, 
as he encountered it in his investigations of labor 
conditions. The chapter is entitled " Nuisances 
of European Travel " and is as follows : 

" Having in previous letters given my impres- 
sions with regard to matters of more serious im- 
port, I wish to say something about the almost 
hourly sufferings of American travelers in 
Europe from mosquito bites. To the sharp 
probes from these insects, with the resultant 
pain, fever and disgust, the traveler is obliged 
to submit continually — at hotels and restau- 
rants, on the railroad and often elsewhere — as 
he goes seeing the sights. To illustrate: our 
party on arriving at The Hague engaged two 
mosquitoes in the form of station porters to 
carry our hand-baggage to the bus of the Hotel 
Blank, waiting at the curb of the station exit. 
The station porters passed the valises over to 
the hotel bus porter at a point just within the 
station door. Nip! nip! by the two station 
porters. 

nip ! nip ! 

" When we arrived at the hotel door both the 
bus porter and the bus driver asked me for what 
they regarded as their due drop of blood. 
Nip! nip! Within the door of the hotel the 
manager informed us that all his rooms had 



148 THE ITCHING PALM 

been engaged by telegraph, but that he could 
give us good rooms at a clean hotel near by, 
and we took them. Two hotel porters who had 
carried our bits of hand-baggage into the hotel 
lobby asked me, as soon as the hotel manager 
had turned his back, for their tribute. Nip! 
nip! Yet another porter, after taking the 
things a few steps down the street to the other 
hotel stood by in the hallway and waited to give 
us his nip. Seven gouges of silver change out 
of my pocket before we reached our rooms! 
But the probes of the mosquito swarms of this 
hotel reached even further. The little hotel 
charged us Hotel Blank rates for our rooms, 
about double what would have been asked had 
we gone there direct and bargained for accom- 
modations. And the dinner at the Hotel Blank 
cost us half a florin apiece more than the price 
set down in the guide-book. In this incident 
the reader sees some, but not all, of the methods 
of stinging which the hotel mosquitoes practice. 
" In Berlin, just at the moment of our de- 
parture, the porter, the gold-laced and brass- 
buttoned dignitary who browbeats lamblike 
guests at European hotel entrances, handed us 
our laundry bill, every article of which was 
charged double to treble New York prices. In 
Vienna, tired of blood-letting to each mosquito 
separately in the group of servants always as- 
sembled about the door upon our departure — 
6 the review ' they themselves call this evolution 



SAMUEL GOMPERS ON TIPPING 149 

— - 1 drew the manager aside and said : ' I un- 
derstand that there is a way of giving tips to all 
hands through the management.' (One bleed- 
ing as it were.) ' How much extra shall I give 
you ? * He replied : ' Twenty per cent, of 
your bill. 5 

" BRIBE AND BE HAPPY " 

" I was rather tickled than bitten the first 
time I got a nip in a European railway train. 
One of our party suggested that as the second- 
class places were crowded we should go into a 
first-class compartment and await results. 
When the conductor in his jim-dandy uniform, 
came along, he was handed our second-class 
tickets and a mark — a silver coin worth a 
paltry twenty-five cents. And he took our 
tickets and passed on without seeing for what 
class they called. The vast possibilities of 
cheaply purchased privileges on future trips 
acted as a palliative to this little sting. And 
the thought of what might happen if the traveler 
in America should try to overcome the virtue 
of one of our express-train conductors with a 
' quarter ' brought all our party to see the cir- 
cumstance from a humorous point of view. 
Truth to relate, it marked the beginning of a 
custom we followed — since we learned that it 
was general — of buying our way past any 
obstacle that appeared to interrupt the smooth- 
ness or comfort of our daily progress. With a 



150 THE ITCHING PALM 

little silver we henceforth obtained concessions 
from grand-looking policemen, soldiers on 
guard, vergers in churches, museum custodians. 
It is a common custom for conductors on street 
cars in Continental Europe to hold out their 
hands to receive as a tip any small change due, 
but first handed over to the passenger. You 
may have your choice in European travel: 
Bribe and be otherwise happy and free, or 
virtuously decline to bribe and be snubbed, or- 
dered about and forbidden to see things. 



( 



BORDERS ON BLACKMAIL 



" The tipping system, bad as it is becoming in 
America, is in Europe universal and accepted by 
all classes of travelers as an inevitable nuisance. 
It often borders on blackmail. Tippers go rav- 
ing mad in recounting their wrongs under the 
tyrannies of the system, the newspapers by turn 
rail or make merry over it, the hotel keepers and 
other employers of the class have their excuse 
that they pay wages to their servants — but the 
tipping goes on forever. Why is it? Who is 
to blame? 

" These questions I have asked representative 
waiters — for representatives these men have, 
many of them being organized into benefit socie- 
ties and a small proportion in a sort of trade 
union. But one answer was given. The system 
is detestable to every man and woman of the 
serving class possessing the least degree of self- 



SAMUEL GOMFERS ON TIPPING 151 

respect. It is demoralizing to all who either 
give or receive tips. The real beneficiaries of 
the system are the employers. An end to it, 
with a fair standard of wages, would be a boon 
of the first order to employees, a means of com- 
pelling hotel proprietors to put their business 
on a basis of fair dealing, and an incalculable 
aid to the tranquillity and pleasure of the gen- 
eral public. 

MORAL FIRATES 

" I have often talked over the system of 
tipping with my fellow waiters," said an edu- 
cated man of the calling, when I brought up the 
subject to him. (Parenthetically, perhaps, I 
should say here that since this man speaks 
fluently and writes correctly four languages, 
has traveled much and observed well on the 
great tourist routes of the world, has studied 
some of the serious works of writers on sociol- 
ogy, and has, withal, acquired agreeable man- 
ners, he may be called educated. Without 
doubt, had he a few thousands of vulgar dollars 
he might buy himself a title as Baron and marry 
in our best society ; but he is above that ; he has 
a craving for walking in the light of truth.) 
"All of us would like to see the system abol- 
ished," he assured me, " except a small minority 
who in their moral make-up resemble pirates, 
and who cruise in places where riches abound. 



152 THE ITCHING PALM 

But the whole situation is one in which reform 
is most difficult. 

" Among the people who patronize hotels and 
restaurants there is a considerable element that, 
either for a week of frolic or during their life- 
long holiday, are regardless of the value of their 
tips, and through their vanity enjoy throwing 
away a percentage of their ready money. 
Then, also, are those grateful for the little 
kindly attentions which a good waiter or porter 
knows how to bestow. As for the proprietors 
and managers, their business is based on tips as 
one of the considerable forms of revenue. For 
instance, in many German hotels the waiters 
are obliged to give the cashier five or more marks 
additional on every hundred marks of checks. 
In Austria,* at the larger restaurants the cus- 
tomers tip three persons after a meal — the 
head-waiter who collects the payments, the 
waiter who serves and the piccolo or beer-boy. 
The hotel management sells to the head-waiter 
the monopoly privilege of the tips. The head- 
waiter then provides the newspapers and maga- 
zines on file, the city directories, time-tables and 
other books of reference called for by patrons, 
and a part of the outfit of the waiters. Of 
course, it is an old and true story, that in the 
big restaurants of Paris, and to-day of other 
cities and fashionable watering-places, the wait- 
ers pay so much cash a day for their jobs. The 
pestering of guests to buy drinks comes, not so 



SAMUEL GOMPERS ON TIPPING 153 

much from commissions, as from orders of the 
management that the custom of drinking at 
meals must be encouraged. In Germany it is 
usual at the larger restaurants to add half a 
mark to the cost of a meal if the guest drinks 
plain water only. 

TOO MANY SERVANTS 

" European hotels generally take on more 
servants than are necessary. It makes a show- 
ing of being prepared for big business. Then 
the servants must redouble their artful moves 
to extort tips. Porters not infrequently work 
without salary at all. Chambermaids, who are 
paid by the month, receive absurdly low pay. 
Financing a hotel or restaurant is based on the 
tips as a margin yielding on the average a fixed 
amount. To make them reach the required 
sum all the employees are obliged to maneuver 
so as to put up a showing of earning the 
traveler's extra silver pieces. Coppers rarely 
are expected as tips now. It has become com- 
mon for railway station porters to demand half 
a franc for what once brought them a few sous 
or pfennigs. 

" One outcome of running a hotel on the 
tipping system developed to the point of bam- 
boozling or worrying the guests out of petty 
extras at every turn is that each year there is 
an emigration of European waiters to America 
to get places in hotels taken by European man- 



154 THE ITCHING PALM 

agers, who, depending upon their servants to 
work the system at its worst for the guests, can 
make a business pay both manager and land- 
lord, where an American manager, paying 
wages, would fail. While shop-keepers have in 
the course of time been forced to adopt the one- 
price system, the drift in the hotel business has 
been continuously away from the per diem rate. 
Another point — the big tourist agencies for 
European travel are certainly in some sort of 
partnership with the hotels for which they sell 
coupon tickets. Those on the inside of the 
hotel business in Europe know that these hotels 
are patronized largely by Americans, spend- 
thrifts on their trip staying a few days at a time 
and usually speaking English only, and there- 
fore disinclined to hunt up stopping-places for 
themselves. Hence at such hotels there is a 
harvest for everybody — a situation which 
eventually leads to bad food, bad cooking, bad 
service, and a hold-up at every turn of the 
guest." 

A SORRY BUSINESS 

In going over the possible method of a change 
for the better in this sorry business, my waiter 
friend said that first of all he believed that a big 
trade union must be formed of hotel help. 
Tipping must give way to fair wages. The 
public could give its share of assistance. He 
recommended that the guests at either hotels or 



SAMUEL GOMPERS ON TIPPING 155 

restaurants should follow these rules, notes of 
which were taken on the spot. " Patronize, 
whenever possible, the hotels and eating houses 
where tips are forbidden ; there are such places 
in England and on the continent. Refuse im- 
portunities for tips, either through words or 
6 hanging around, 5 where there has been no ser- 
vice. Where, for your own comfort you feel 
constrained to tip give the bare minimum. 
Whenever possible do not tip at all." 

He added, and I felt that he had me also in 
mind, M Some easy-going natured people believe 
that they tip the nearest itching palm to them 
because of their sympathy with the poor. Re- 
flection should teach them that there can some- 
times be real charity without public demonstra- 
tion." 

True, church people might, with this pur- 
pose, give through their own congregational 
agencies. In London, the American traveler 
wishing to do the best with his withheld tip- 
appropriation, might send it to the Westminster 
Children's Aid Society ; In Rome, to the Society 
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; In 
Berlin, to the semi-public lodging houses. 
Everywhere, trade-unionists can always give 
first to the genuine and pressing claims of their 
own organizations. But, of course, if the tip- 
per, gives, not from motives of good-hearted- 
ness, but mere vanity, all advice is thrown away 
on him. The hotel keeper will continue growing 



156 THE ITCHING PALM 

rich on him and despising him. Other folks in 
Europe may have good reason to tell him, what 
a plain spoken Swiss citizen told a friend of 
mine : " You Americans with your dirty dol- 
lars are ruining my country." 

VANITY, ALL IS VANITY ! 

Mr. Gompers in this chapter from his book 
has shed much light on the ethics, economics and 
psychology of tipping. The deliberate, shame- 
less exploitation of the public by employers and 
employees is revealed. No ground to stand 
upon is left to the tip givers except vanity, and 
the pernicious influence of the custom, to pa- 
tron, employee and employer, is so unmistakable 
that the doom of the custom is as certain as 
was slavery, when the American conscience once 
squarely faces the issue. 

Hotel and restaurant managers in our cities 
have employed European waiters upon the 
theory that the native American has too much 
independence and self-respect. The European 
waiters have multiplied the tip-giving propen- 
sity in America and have established their un- 
democratic sovereignty over our public hospital- 
ity. Inasmuch as a certain element of Ameri- 
cans think that the last word in social pro- 



SAMUEL GOMPERS ON TIPPING 157 

priety originates in Europe, when these Eu- 
ropean servitors are transplanted, gold lace and 
all, to America, they hasten to enlarge their 
tips to the point which they assume these servi- 
tors consider " proper." 

The astonishing feature of the European sit- 
uation is that the European patrons of hotels 
do not themselves tip within a tenth of the 
largess bestowed by American tourists. The 
American tourist is fair game to the European 
hotel, which trebles its regular rates the mo- 
ment he appears. A native of the country, 
however, can have identically the same accom- 
modations for one-third of the American's bill, 
and his tips are a bagatelle in comparison. 

The situation may be changed by an organ- 
ization of employees, but reform will come most 
speedily whenever the public, which pays the 
bill, decides to withhold the tribute. 



XVII 

' THE WAY OUT 

Summarizing the case against tipping, the 
following facts stand out prominently : 

1. Flunky ism is rampant in the American 
democracy and this aristocratic influence is un- 
dermining republican ideals and institutions. 

2. Flunkyism, in the form of tipping, is kept 
alive by the courts on the plea of " personal 
liberty." 

3. Tipping nowadays is of precisely the same 
morality as paying tribute to the Barbary 
Pirates was in Jefferson's day, which the 
American conscience finally abolished. 

4. On the economic side, tipping is wrong be- 
cause it is payment for no service, or double 
payment for one service; thereby causing the 
exchange of wealth without a mutual gain. 

5. Tipping is ethically w T rong because one 
person accepts payment for a service not ren- 
dered, or for a service which the employer 
already has paid to have performed. And be- 
cause gratuities destroy self-respect. 

6. The hold which tipping has upon the pub- 

158 



THE WAY OUT 159 

lie is due to unscrupulous appeals to generosity, 
pride and fear of violating conventional social 
usage, 

7. The public is exploited deliberately 
through books on social propriety which empha- 
size the custom, or which advise conformity 
thereto for the sake of peace and comfort. 

8. The exploitation of the public is aided by 
the visualization of the custom in moving pic- 
tures and on the stage where it is treated hu- 
morously. 

9. Employees defend tipping upon the ground 
that it compensates them for extra services not 
covered in their wages. An examination of in- 
dividual instances shows this contention to be 
false in a vast majority of the number examined. 

10. Employers defend the custom on the 
ground that the public insists upon giving 
gratuities and they must face competition based 
upon that condition. But it is shown that em- 
ployers openly profit by the custom and secretly 
encourage it. 

11. One metropolitan hotel has blazed the 
way to reform by guaranteeing that its guests 
will not be annoyed or neglected if tips are not 
given. This partial step toward the abolition 
of the custom is possible everywhere if employ- 
ers are sincere in their profession of antipathy 
for the custom. 

12. Our democratic government permits its 
officers and employees to accept gratuities, 



160 THE ITCHING PALM 

thereby stultifying the spirit of the Declaration 
of Independence and the Constitution. 

13. The conscience of the people as reflected 
in the laws adopted or offered against tipping 
is sound and needs only to be led to an adequate 
expression. There are abundant indications of 
a widespread distaste for the custom but the 
sentiment is unorganized and inarticulate. 

14. The head of the labor movement in Amer- 
ica declares that tipping is undesirable as a sys- 
tem of compensation for employees and destroys 
the self-respect of those who give or receive the 
gratuities. 

15. A national organization of those inter- 
ested in this reform should be brought into being 
with effective state auxiliaries. 

BETTER ORGANIZATION NEEDED 

The last proposition constitutes " the way 
out n of the present undesirable situation. 
When it is remembered that the anti-tipping 
propaganda heretofore has lacked organization 
and direction it is not surprising that the laws 
adopted against the custom and the spasmodic 
public irritation over it have fizzled out. With 
the same organization behind this movement 
that has been given to the anti-saloon move- 
ment, or the suffrage movement, tipping would 
be vanquished in an astonishingly short time. 



THE WAY OUT 161 

There is no doubt there is sufficient latent op- 
position to tipping to form the basis of an anti- 
tipping organization. It may be called " The 
American Anti-Tipping Association,' 5 01 by any 
other name, and it should embrace in its mem- 
bership not only those who are opposed to giv- 
ing tips, but those servants and workers who 
are opposed to receiving tips, and also all other 
persons of any race or creed whose conception 
of true Americanism does not include approval 
of this custom. 

NOT A WAR AGAINST PERSONS 

The object of such an organization should 
not be to wage war on persons, but on a cus- 
tom. There is no need for hostility against 
waiters, barberf porters and the like as a class. 
Many of these heartily oppose the custom and 
will join in a movement to eradicate it. Hence, 
the campaign should be to readjust the basis 
of compensation of those who serve the public 
so that self-respect may be preserved all around. 
Nothing less than a fair wage as a substitute 
for the present tipping system of compensa- 
tion would be considered. 

Having made the foregoing point clear at 



162 THE ITCHING PALM 

the outset, much resentment among servitors 
would be eliminated. No one has a desire to 
deprive a waiter of an adequate compensation, 
but no one has a desire to give him an excessive 
compensation through gratuities, or a compen- 
sation which depresses his self-respect in the 
manner of receiving and humiliates the patron 
in the manner of giving. 

Employers would need to be informed, too, 
that the campaign against tipping is not to 
throw an unjust burden of operating expense 
upon them. It will indeed deprive them of any 
revenues which they should not, economically 
or ethically, receive from the public through 
gratuities to employees. The substitution of 
a wage scale will be attended by economic 
changes which at first may cause some unsettled 
conditions, but this is inevitable when an un- 
sound practice has been allowed to grow un- 
restrained in the business world. 

PUBLIC OPINION 

One of the first aims of such an organization 
would be to bring public opinion to bear upon 
city, state and national governments to in- 



THE WAY OUT 163 

spire them to clean house in regard to tipping. 
No government employee should be permitted 
to accept any compensation other than his 
salary or wages from the government. Mail 
carriers, policemen, garbage collectors, guides 
and other government employees are paid ade- 
quately and gratuities to them from the public 
are indefensible, in any country, and supremely 
so in the American democracy. 

The public, of course, will need to revise its 
attitude toward these and all persons who serve 
them. The feeling that a traffic policeman 
whom you pass in your automobile every day 
should be remembered with a gift of money or 
anything else substantial at Christmas, or upon 
any other occasion is false sentiment. He is 
due nothing except courtesy all the time from 
the public, which, through taxes, already has 
provided his compensation. The feeling that 
a mail carrier whom you see daily, or a garbage 
collector, must be similarly remembered is 
equally false sentiment. The ideal is a rela- 
tion in which patron and employee, public and 
government employee, entertain mutual opin- 
ions of self-respect, and regardless of how dis- 



164 THE ITCHING PALM 

tasteful this may be to class sense, or aristo- 
cratic impulses, it is the American standard and 
the right standard. 

PROMOTING LEGISLATION 

An organization opposed to tipping would 
have as its further objects the promotion of 
legislation against the custom and the protec- 
tion of the public in the enjoyment of its rights 
at law. If so many States have adopted laws 
as a spontaneous expression of Americanism, 
it may be assumed that with organized public 
sentiment, and educated public sentiment all the 
States will get in line. There will be abundant 
financial resources behind such an organization. 
Those who oppose tipping have been silent but 
they have felt keenly and will contribute liber- 
ally toward the advancement of the cause. 
And when such an organization actually proves 
its efficacy in protecting the public, its ranks 
will be augmented overwhelmingly. 

The protection hinted at is the kind that 
would take up specific instances of neglect of 
patrons who do not give tips. Thus, if a mem- 
ber should be neglected or insulted in a hotel 
after he had failed to bestow a gratuity, the 



THE WAY OUT 165 

organization, upon investigation, would assume 
the task of correcting the situation at law. 
Even where there is no statute against tipping, 
the common law guarantees the right of a pa- 
tron to fair and equal service, and the organiza- 
tion could enforce this right in the courts. 

Naturally, great care and good judgment 
would be needed to prevent an injustice to pro- 
prietors and employees. Often patrons exact 
more service than they are entitled to, and in 
such a situation the organization would be 
ranged on the side of the employee. Those 
who desire a condition where they may run 
rough-shod over servitors have a mistaken idea 
of the anti-tipping ideal. The emplo3^er is re- 
quired to have employees who will give cheer- 
ful, adequate service, but within the limits of 
reason, and the selfish, domineering, patron is 
an evil which must be restrained as effectually 
as the waiter who surreptitiously insults pa- 
trons who do not tip. 

TO PREVENT COMPLAINT 

Surveying the vast field of tipping one may 
wonder how any organization could offer pro- 
tection to the numberless patrons who might 



166 THE ITCHING PALM 

complain. The answer is that the organization 
would be as widespread as the custom. Every 
town and city would have its local organization 
with an attorney to prosecute violations. But 
it is reasonable to presume that when public 
opinion is once thoroughly aroused and organ- 
ized, and a few prosecutions have been success- 
ful, that employers and employees, who do not 
voluntarily reform their practices, will see the 
light. 

As deep-rooted as the custom seems, it really 
rests on insecure foundations and will crumble 
before any real attack. The average American, 
be he barber, waiter or porter, has enough in- 
herent understanding of democracy to know 
that the custom is wrong. He " will get his " 
as long as an easy-going public will stand for 
the exaction, but will not be a formidable oppo- 
nent. The imported European waiter will pre- 
sent more obstinate fondness for the custom, 
having been nurtured in the aristocratic school, 
but his opposition can be handled. 

The most difficult type will be the class of 
patrons who delight in playing the role of Lady 
Bountiful or Gentleman Generous. Their 
pride will be restrained from buying servility 



THE WAY OUT 167 

from other Americans. And wealthy proprie- 
tors, who cater to this class and the interme- 
diate class which ape the " smart set," will cling 
to the custom because of their pecuniary inter- 
est therein. But the average American and 
his vigorous sense of democracy will be adequate 
to the task of controlling all elements adverse 
to the republic. 

The campaign against tipping is much more 
than a purpose to save the money given in gra- 
tuities. Its idealism aims to reach the very 
pinnacle of republican society — the destiny 
toward which 1776 started us. The mountain 
peaks of pride will have to be pulled down and 
the valleys of false humility will have to be 
lifted up, while the impulses to greed and avarice 
will have to be rebuked until every American can 
say: 

If I must build my pride upon another man's 

humility, 
I will not be proud; 
If I must build my strength upon another man's 

weakness, 
I will not be strong; 
If I must build my success upon another man's 

failure, 
I will not succeed ! 



INDEX 

Arguments for Tipping 26, 28 

Baggagemen 76 

Barbary Pirates, The 15 

Barber, The 29 

Barber-shop Porters 79 

Bath Attendants 86 

Bell-boys 32, 69, 104 

Better Organization Needed 160 

Bible, The, Against Tipping 45 

Blackmail 150 

Bootblacks 66, 78 

Caste and Class 47 

Chambermaids 153 

Chauffeurs 33 

Christmas Tips 116, 119 

Cloakroom Tactics 52 

Clubs 119 

Commissions, Splitting 43 

Courts, The, and tipping 126 

Custom Above Law 123 

Democracy and Tipping . . 38, 48, 114, 166 

Door Men ,,.., 81 

169 



170 INDEX 

Economics of Tipping 26, 28 

Elevator Men 61, 81 

Employee Viewpoint, The , . . . . 73 

Employer Viewpoint, The 88 

Employers, can control 102 

" conspiracy by 90 

" retain tips 86, 90, 152 

" three kinds of 88 

" who profit by tips ..... 89, 105 

Equality and Uniformity 115 

Etiquette Books foster tipping 58 

European Tips 146 

train conductors ,. . . . 149 

Fear, as a reason for tipping 55 

Flunkyism in America 7 

Free and Equal 113 

Garbage Collectors 116, 118 

Generosity, as a reason for tipping .... 51 

" misguided 117 

Gentleman, what is a? 37 

" would he accept tips? 37 

Golden Rule, The 119 

Gompers, Samuel, on tipping 144 

Government Hotels, tipping in 120 

" " the, and tipping. . 113 

Governor Whitman against tips 40 

Graft, " honest " 45 

" taught by tipping 42 

Guest's Right, The 104 



INDEX 171 

Guides 81 

Harry Lauder against tipping 41 

Hatboys 82 

" Honest Graft " . 45 

Hospitality, false 101 

Hotel, The 30 

" fees 59 

* hospitality 62, 101 

" theory and practice 32 

" tipless 97, 146 

House Servants 64 

Hush Money 42 

Ideal Law, The 132 

Illinois Law, The 91 

" Compromise, The 138 

Iowa Law, The 124 

Itching Palm, The . . 8, 10, 19, 31, 70, 72 

Janitors 83 

Lady, What is a? 37 

would she accept tips 37 

Laws Against Tipping 122 

Legalized Robbery 140 

Legislation, Promoting 164 

Literature of Tipping, The 58 

Mail Carriers 116 

Manicurists 84 



172 INDEX 

Massachusetts, In 141 

Merchants against tips 44 

Messengers 85 

" Millions for Defense " 17 

Moral Pirates 151 

" Movies," the, and tipping 69 

Musicians 66 

Nebraska Act, The 134 

Not a War Against Persons 161 

" No Tip " Policy, barber shops 89 

" " " hotels 89, 97, 147 

" " " restaurants 89 

Ocean Voyages, tipping on 65 

One Compensation, One Service .... 35, 55 

Organization Needed 160 

Personal Liberty 10, 13 

Personnel and Distribution 19 

Policemen 116, 119 

Porters 147, 153 

Pullman 108 

Price of Pride, The 37 

Pride, as a reason for tipping 54 

Private Houses, tipping in 64 

Psychology of Tipping, The 47 

Pullman Company, The 105 

" " investigated 106 

Public Opinion 162 

Reasons for tipping 51, 54, 55 



INDEX 173 

Recipients opposed to Tipping 39, 144, 150 
Remedy for Tipping . . 55, 94, 95, 103, 158 
Rich American Myth, The 67 

Ship's Doctor, The 67 

Sleeping-Car Phase, The 105 

Solution, a Reasonable 94 

South Carolina Law, The 129 

Splitting Commissions 43 

Stage, The, and Tipping 68, 72 

Statistics of Tipping 

money given in tips 8 

number of tip-takers 7 

tips in N. Y. City 17, 22 

tips in other cities 21 

tip-taking classes 19, 20 

Statler Hotel, The 97 

Stenographers 86 

Stewards, Ship 66 

Street Cleaners 118 

Tennessee Law, The 136 

Tipping and Americanism 11, 87, 150 

" and democracy 7, 38, 48, 113 

" and labor 144, 145 

" and morals 96, 158 

" and patriotism 56 

" and personal liberty 10, 13 

" and public opinion . . . 162 

" and slavery 11, 50 

" and the Bible 45 



174 INDEX 

Tipping and the caste system 47 

" and the courts 126 

and the wage system 75, 107 

" arguments for 26, 28 

" and a training school for graft . 42 

" in private houses 64 

" in " the movies " . . . .>; 69 

" Laws Against 123 

" Literature of, The 58 

" Merchants opposed to 44 

u on ocean voyages 65 

w on the stage 68 

" psychology of, the 47 

" real reasons for 51, 54, 55 

" recipients opposed to . 39, 144, 150 

remedy for . . . 55, 94, 95, 103, 158 

" Tip Privileges " Sold 90, 152 

Tip-Takers, Partial List of 19 

" numbers by cities 21 

" Tip Trust, The " 92 

" Tribute, Not One Cent for " 17 

Wages versus Tips 75, 107 

Waiter, The 27 

" can he be a gentleman? 37 

Waiters, European 150, 156 

Waitresses 59 

Walsh Commission, The Ill 

Washington Law, The 122 

Way Out, The 158 

Wisconsin Bill, The 125 

Y. M. C. A., The 104 

H115 89 



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